[pjmlp]

OLE as concept, is based on how Xerox Star and GlobalView handled documents.

Some of the Office team early developers were ex-Xerox researchers.

I haven't mentioned them, because they aren't well know outside Xerox PARC archeology.

[__d]

You could change that? They deserve the history be known.

[lproven]

Charles Simonyi developed Bravo, the first WYSIWYG word processor, for the Alto at Xerox PARC.

He later wrote Microsoft Word, and other parts of what became MS Office, at Microsoft, where he was Chief Architect:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Simonyi

He designed what is now called Hungarian Notation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_notation

Word uses the famous piece table data structure -- also from PARC -- which is how "fast saves" work.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160308183811/http://1017.songt...

As a result Simonyi is a billionaire and was the first ever two-time space tourist:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/26/space-tourist-...

You could justifiably say that he and his work are quite famous. (!)

[hedora]

It’s been documented elsewhere; e.g.:

https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&d...