Here’s the new default font for Microsoft Outlook and Word: Aptos

Published

2 years ago

July 13, 2023

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Goodbye, Calibri.

Microsoft has named the next default font for its productivity applications, such as Word and Outlook, after testing five candidates it introduced in 2021. Since then, it’s been called Bierstadt. Now it’s getting a new name: Aptos.

The move amounts to a subtle refinement for some of the most popular software in the world. Microsoft doesn’t take such steps lightly, because its Office products fetch almost 24% of its revenue. They’re growing faster than other parts of the business, such as video game content and search advertising, as Microsoft seeks to line up more end users and get existing clients to spend more.

If the core applications look fresh, Microsoft can make a better argument when the time comes to renew subscriptions to Microsoft 365, formerly known as Office 365. The company is now ready to do that, after accepting input from end users about the five new fonts.

“Today we begin the final phase of this major change where Aptos will start appearing as the new default font across Word, Outlook, PowerPoint and Excel for hundreds of millions of users,” Si Daniels, principal program manager for Office design at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post published Thursday. “And, over the next few months it will roll out to be the default for all our customers.”

Aptos will remain available in the font list under the old Bierstadt name for people who are accustomed to it. Users can also choose to set any other font as the default. That includes older standards, such as Times New Roman, Arial or even Calibri, which has been the default since 2007, before the launch of Office 365 in 2011. Many people perceive Microsoft as a friendlier place since Satya Nadella replaced Steve Ballmer as its CEO in 2014, but that updated identity isn’t necessarily reflected when someone starts writing an email in Outlook with a font that predates Nadella.

In 2019, Microsoft asked font designer Steve Matteson to develop a font in the grotesque sans-serif style that includes the classic Helvetica. The company didn’t let on that it was considering it as a possible successor for Calibri, Matteson said in an interview with CNBC this week.

At the time, Matteson was still working for the font company Monotype, and he and his colleagues gave Microsoft four or five proposals to look at, without including the names of the contributors. That’s important because the designers didn’t want his connection to Microsoft to influence the software maker’s decision, he said.

Matteson’s work with Microsoft goes back to the 1990s. He helped with Microsoft’s TrueType fonts for Windows 3.1 and created the Segoe font Microsoft uses for its current logo and marketing materials. He also contributed to the aptly named font Curlz. That was not his proudest moment, he said.

Of the bunch that Matteson and his colleagues sent to Microsoft, they picked his, which at that point was dubbed simply Grotesque No. 2. Then Microsoft gave it a codename, Koyuk. Then he came up with the name Bierstadt, taking the name of a mountain in Colorado, where he lives. In German, Bierstadt means “beer city.”

Some people didn’t take the name seriously and Microsoft decided to come up with a new one for the font, Matteson said. Aptos, an unincorporated town in Santa Cruz County, California, came to his mind.

“Aptos has this unique coastal climate, where it’s a beach, and all the way up to the redwoods,” he said. “It’s what I loved about California is the diversity, and it kind of told me that there’s all these different moods and experiences you can have. Similarly, with Aptos, you have all these different voices you can speak in without distorting the message.”

Matteson came up with a serif version of the font, along with a monospace version that can work for typing out code. He’s worked on monetary symbols and support for Greek and Cyrillic languages. He collaborated with Microsoft to ensure it will work well in different scenarios. If one were to convert cells in an Excel spreadsheet from Calibri to Aptos, it’s unlikely that numbers in a cell will overflow into the one next to it, he said.

He hasn’t seen every response to the font. But he has observed people saying that in Bierstadt, a lowercase L and a capital I can’t be mistaken for each other.

Still, Matteson has nothing but respect for Calibri and its creator, Lucas de Groot.

“I can understand Microsoft wanting to, you know, make a change, but I don’t think there’s ever been anything wrong with Calibri,” he said.

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Technology

We’re raising our CrowdStrike price target following a beat and raise quarter

Published

3 hours ago

December 3, 2025

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We're raising our CrowdStrike price target following a beat and raise quarter

Technology

Okta shares fall as company declines to give guidance for next fiscal year

Published

5 hours ago

December 2, 2025

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Okta shares fall as company declines to give guidance for next fiscal year

Cheng Xin | Getty Images

Okta on Tuesday topped Wall Street’s third-quarter estimates and issued an upbeat outlook, but shares fell as the company did not provide guidance for fiscal 2027.

Shares of the identity management provider fell more than 3% in after-hours trading on Tuesday.

Here’s how the company did versus LSEG estimates:

Earnings per share: 82 cents adjusted vs. 76 cents expected
Revenue: $742 million vs. $730 million expected

Compared to previous third-quarter reports, Okta refrained from offering preliminary guidance for the upcoming fiscal year. Finance chief Brett Tighe cited seasonality in the fourth quarter, and said providing guidance would require “some conservatism.”

Okta released a capability that allows businesses to build AI agents and automate tasks during the third quarter.

CEO Todd McKinnon told CNBC that upside from AI agents haven’t been fully baked into results and could exceed Okta’s core total addressable market over the next five years.

“It’s not in the results yet, but we’re investing, and we’re capitalizing on the opportunity like it will be a big part of the future,” he said in a Tuesday interview.

Revenues increased almost 12% from $665 million in the year-ago period. Net income increased 169% to $43 million, or 24 cents per share, from $16 million, or breakeven, a year ago. Subscription revenues grew 11% to $724 million, ahead of a $715 million estimate.

For the current quarter, the cybersecurity company expects revenues between $748 million and $750 million and adjusted earnings of 84 cents to 85 cents per share. Analysts forecast $738 million in revenues and EPS of 84 cents for the fourth quarter.

Returning performance obligations, or the company’s subscription backlog, rose 17% from a year ago to $4.29 billion and surpassed a $4.17 billion estimate from StreetAccount.

This year has been a blockbuster period for cybersecurity companies, with major acquisition deals from the likes of Palo Alto Networks and Google and a raft of new initial public offerings from the sector.

Okta shares have gained about 4% this year.

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Technology

Marvell to acquire Celestial AI for as much as $5.5 billion

Published

6 hours ago

December 2, 2025

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Marvell to acquire Celestial AI for as much as .5 billion

Marvell Technology Group Ltd. headquarters in Santa Clara, California, on Sept. 6, 2024.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Semiconductor company Marvell on Tuesday announced that it will acquire Celestial AI for at least $3.25 billion in cash and stock.

The purchase price could increase to $5.5 billion if Celestial hits revenue milestones, Marvell said.

Marvell shares rose 13% in extended trading Tuesday as the company reported third-quarter earnings that beat expectations and said on the earnings call that it expected data center revenue to rise 25% next year.

The deal is an aggressive move for Marvell to acquire complimentary technology to its semiconductor networking business. The addition of Celestial could enable Marvell to sell more chips and parts to companies that are currently committing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on infrastructure for AI.

Marvell stock is down 18% so far in 2025 even as semiconductor rivals like Broadcom have seen big valuation increases driven by excitement around artificial intelligence.

Celestial is a startup focused on developing optical interconnect hardware, which it calls a “photonic fabric,” to connect high-performance computers. Celestial was reportedly valued at $2.5 billion in March in a funding round, and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan joined the startup’s board in January.

Optical connections are becoming increasingly important because the most advanced AI systems need those parts tie together dozens or hundreds of chips so they can work as one to train and run the biggest large-language models.

Currently, many AI chip connections are done using copper wires, but newer systems are increasingly using optical connections because they can transfer more data faster and enable physically longer cables. Optical connections also cost more.

“This builds on our technology leadership, broadens our addressable market in scale-up connectivity, and accelerates our roadmap to deliver the industry’s most complete connectivity platform for AI and cloud customers,” Marvell CEO Matt Murphy said in a statement.

Marvell said that the first application of Celestial technology would be to connect a system based on “large XPUs,” which are custom AI chips usually made by the companies investing billions in AI infrastructure.

On Tuesday, the company said that it could even integrate Celestial’s optical technology into custom chips, and based on customer traction, the startup’s technology would soon be integrated into custom AI chips and related parts called switches.

Amazon Web Services Vice President Dave Brown said in a statement that Marvell’s acquisition of Celestial will “help further accelerate optical scale-up innovation for next-generation AI deployments.”

The maximum payout for the deal will be triggered if Celestial can record $2 billion in cumulative revenue by the end of fiscal 2029. The deal is expected to close early next year.

In its third-quarter earnings on Tuesday, Marvell earnings of 76 cents per share on $2.08 billion in sales, versus LSEG expectations of 73 cents on $2.07 billion in sales. Marvell said that it expects fourth-quarter revenue to be $2.2 billion, slightly higher than LSEG’s forecast of $2.18 billion.

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