Microsoft Announces Office Winter Games Contest Winners

REDMOND, Wash., Jan. 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Bloggers Amber Borowski Johnson and Dylan Derryberry are the winners of the Microsoft Corp.-sponsored Office Winter Games contest, it was announced today. With support from the U.S. Olympic Committee, Johnson and Derryberry will go to the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, and will receive Microsoft Office 2010 to help them blog daily.

(Logo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO)

Johnson and Derryberry were two of the 10 contest semifinalists chosen by a panel of judges, including five-time Olympic gold medalist Bonnie Blair and online video stars Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld from CollegeHumor.com. The public also voted for their favorite semifinalists online, and Johnson and Derryberry were selected based on the number of votes they received.

Both Johnson and Derryberry will take a 10-day trip to Vancouver, where they will work alongside Team USA to blog about the U.S. team using top-of-the-line technology including Microsoft Office 2010 Professional beta and the high-performance Acer Aspire 4810 laptop.

Microsoft Office 2010 is the premier productivity solution across PCs, mobile phones and Web browsers, and the Microsoft "blogathletes" will highlight this at the Games. From broadcast and video editing in Microsoft Office PowerPoint to co-authoring and the ability to post directly to blogs in Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft is delivering technology to help people work smarter and faster from virtually any location using almost any device. Microsoft Office 2010, currently in beta, delivers innovative capabilities and provides new levels of flexibility and choice that will help people do the following:

• Work anywhere with Office Web Apps — the online companions to Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote — that help provide access to documents from virtually anywhere and help preserve the look and feel of documents on various devices
• Collaborate better with co-authoring in Microsoft Word 2010, Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 and Microsoft OneNote 2010, along with advanced e-mail management and calendaring capabilities in Microsoft Outlook 2010, including the option to "ignore" unwanted e-mail threads
• Easily express your creativity with video and picture editing, broadcast capability in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010, easy document preparation through the new Microsoft Office Backstage view, and new Sparklines in Microsoft Excel 2010 to visualize data and spot trends faster

Johnson, a mother of two and a veteran writer, is originally from Canada and grew up in the Olympic city of Calgary.

"It's exciting for me to see the Games in my homeland, and now I have a chance to share the inspiring 'behind-the-scenes' athlete stories I always wanted to tell," Johnson said.

She's looking forward to all of the events, but has a special interest in figure skating, and enjoys men's hockey and skiing. In fact, her three-year-old son, Bode, is named after the two-time 2002 Winter Olympics alpine skiing legend Bode Miller.

Derryberry, a sophomore at Colorado Mountain College, is an active blogger for his school, where he chronicles his college experience and activities held across campus.

He aspires to become a high-school journalism teacher and is thrilled his trip to the Winter Games will give him the chance to experience his chosen career firsthand.

"I'm most excited about seeing the Games — it's the Olympics, after all," Derryberry said. "But blogging next to journalists from all over the world will give me the opportunity to see what it's like to write about the events — while cheering on my country."

Follow Johnson at http://www.crazybloggincanuck.com; follow Derryberry at http://cmc-glenwood-dylan.blogspot.com.

Microsoft Office 2010 will be available in June 2010; those wanting more information and to download Office 2010 beta should visit http://www.microsoft.com/2010.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

This information is about pre-release software and therefore is subject to change. It is provided without warranty of any kind, express or implied.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.