Students and faculty of the Mississippi State University College of Business and Industry are going to have first-hand experience with the new Windows 95 thanks to a donation by the Microsoft Corporation.

Almost $19,000 of software – the newly released Windows 95, Powerpoint, Microsoft’s Office Professional suite of programs and visual basic programming system — are included.

“The new software will enable students to become better prepared for assisting Mississippi corporations with their computer and information systems needs,” Charles Litecky, professor of business information systems, said.

The final paperwork deadline is Sept. 15, and the software should arrive sometime around the eighth or ninth week of the fall this year. Along with the awarding of the software, a $45,000 grant was given to the college for multimedia equipment for graduate students.

The software has three major components that will enable students in their work. Windows 95 is the operating system. Second is Microsoft Office Professional, which includes Word, a word processing program, Excel spreadsheet and Access database. The third component, Microsoft’s presentation software Powerpoint, is a real asset to the college, Litecky said.

There will be a new class taught this fall on multimedia presentation and communication, and the program will help out with the instruction and cost, he added.

The program will start out for use by graduate students in the multimedia classes, and then the professors will have it available to them to help in their classroom presentation,” Litecky said.

The use license granted Mississippi State allows for system upgrades for two years. Microsoft made the donation to the department as part of a nationwide program called Instructional Lab Grants Program.

Joining Litecky in the grant proposal were faculty colleagues Kirk Arnett, Steve Canfield, Rodney Pearson and J.P. Shim.