About Microsoft

History

1975вЂ"1985: Founding

Following the launch of the Altair 8800, Bill Gates called the creators of the new microcomputer, Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), offering to demonstrate an implementation of the BASIC programming language for the system. After the demonstration, MITS agreed to distribute Altair BASIC.[26] Gates left Harvard University, moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico where MITS was located, and founded Microsoft there. The company's first international office was founded on November 1, 1978, in Japan, entitled "ASCII Microsoft" (now called "Microsoft Japan").[26] On January 1, 1979, the company moved from Albuquerque to a new home in Bellevue, Washington.[26] Steve Ballmer joined the company on June 11, 1980, and later succeeded Bill Gates as CEO.[26]

DOS (Disk Operating System) was the operating system that brought the company its first real success. On August 12, 1981, after negotiations with Digital Research failed, IBM awarded a contract to Microsoft to provide a version of the CP/M operating system, which was set to be used in the upcoming IBM Personal Computer (PC). For this deal, Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products, which IBM renamed to PC-DOS. Later, the market saw a flood of IBM PC clones after Columbia Data Products successfully cloned the IBM BIOS, and by aggressively marketing MS-DOS to manufacturers of IBM-PC clones, Microsoft rose from a small player to one of the major software vendors in the home computer industry.[27][28][29][30][31][32][33] The company expanded into new markets with the release of the Microsoft Mouse in 1983, as well as a publishing division named Microsoft Press.[26]

1985вЂ"1995: OS/2 and Windows

In August 1985, Microsoft and IBM partnered in the development of a different operating system called OS/2.[34] On November 20, 1985, Microsoft released its first retail version of Microsoft Windows, originally a graphical extension for its MS-DOS operating system.[26] On March 13, 1986 the company went public with an IPO, with a starting initial offering price of $21.00 and ending at the first day of trading as at US $28.00. In 1987, Microsoft eventually released their first version of OS/2 to OEMs.[35]

The sign at a main entrance to the Microsoft corporate campus. The Redmond Microsoft campus today includes more than 8 million square feet (approx. 750,000 mÐ'І) and over 30,000 employees.

The sign at a main entrance to the Microsoft corporate campus. The Redmond Microsoft campus today includes more than 8 million square feet (approx. 750,000 mÐ'І) and over 30,000 employees.[36]

In 1989, Microsoft introduced its flagship office suite, Microsoft Office. This was a bundle of separate office productivity applications, such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.[26] On May 22, 1990 Microsoft launched Windows 3.0.[37] The new version of Microsoft's operating system boasted such new features as streamlined user interface graphics and improved protected mode capability for the Intel 386 processor; it sold over 100,000 copies in two weeks.[38] Windows at the time generated more revenue for Microsoft than OS/2, and the company decided to move more resources from OS/2 to Windows.[39] In the ensuing years, the popularity of OS/2 declined, and Windows quickly became the favored PC platform.

During the transition from MS-DOS to Windows, the success of Microsoft's product Microsoft Office allowed the company to gain ground on application-software competitors, such as WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3.[40][41] According to The Register, Novell, an owner of WordPerfect for a time, alleged that Microsoft used its inside knowledge of the DOS and Windows kernels and of undocumented Application Programming Interface features to make Office perform better than its competitors.[42] Eventually, Microsoft Office became the dominant business suite, with a market share far exceeding that of its competitors.[43]

In 1993, Microsoft released Windows NT 3.1, a business operating system with the Windows 3.1 user interface but an entirely different kernel.[40] In 1995, Microsoft released Windows 95, a new version of the company's flagship operating system which featured a completely new user interface, including a novel start button; more than a million copies of Microsoft Windows 95 were sold in the first four days after its release.[40] The company also released its web browser, Internet Explorer, with the Windows 95 Plus! Pack in August 1995 and subsequent Windows versions.[44]

1995вЂ"2005: Internet and legal issues

In the mid-90s, Microsoft began to expand its product line into computer networking and the World Wide Web. On August 24, 1995, it launched a major online service, MSN (Microsoft Network), as a direct competitor to AOL. MSN became an umbrella service for Microsoft's online services.[26][40][45] The company continued to branch out into new markets in 1996, starting with a joint venture with NBC