Microsoft

History of Microsoft

Microsoft was founded by Paul Allen and Bill Gates in 1975. Allen and Gates started out by trying to get the programming language BASIC to work on their Altair 8800. The Altair 8800, just in case you didn't know, is the first successful PC. The Altair had lights and switches, on the front of it. To program the Altair, you had to toggle those switches. Allen and Gates then came up with idea of using a BASIC interpreter to connect the Altair and a keyboard. They thought this would make programming easier. This interpreter was Microsoft's first every product. It became so popular that Gates had to tell hobbyists to stop copying Microsoft's interpreter and giving them out for free. Microsoft created many more versions of the BASIC interpreter, and then created their first ever piece of hardware, the SoftCard. The SoftCard ran on CP/M, which later involved into DOS. DOS was able to run on Apple computers as well. Microsoft agreed to produce DOS for IBMs PC's, which quickly turned them into a software giant. Their yearly revenue went from 16 million to 97 million in just 3 years. This amount was then bolstered by the introduction of Microsoft Word. They then released Windows 1 in 1985. This was basically just a good looking version of DOS. Windows 1 was still ahead of its time in many ways. For example, it was widely criticized for relying too much on the mouse. Most computers back then didn't even have mouses. Gates was undeterred and released Windows 3 5 years later. It was a huge success. It actually had icons for apps and it had a whopping 256 colors. Microsoft Office was also released that same year. Critics said that it was programmed to work better on the Windows Operating System. Windows became the most popular graphical OS in 1983 and became the leader of the productivity application a year later. With this much popularity, people couldn't wait for Windows 95 to be released in 1995. Microsoft became so popular that people started using Windows at home, even on their T.V.s. Microsoft also partnered with General Electrics to create MSNBC, a cable channel for tech news. In 1998, Windows 98 was released and eyebrows were raised when it came bundled with Internet Explorer. Windows 98 wouldn't even work properly without IE. This escalated to the point where the U.S. government almost tore Microsoft into 2, but it was avoided with a settlement. During this, Microsoft released Windows ME(Millennial Edition). Windows ME was so buggy that PCworld joked that ME stood for mistake edition. They then released Windows XP, which was very successful. It turned out that MS DOS had actually ran under Windows 9x, which is Windows 95, 98, and ME. The same year Microsoft released the original Xbox. They did this to bring game developers attention back to Microsoft as the Sony Playstation was taking game developers attention away from Windows. The Xbox was the first Video Game console to have an ethernet and a HDD(Hard Disk Drive). It turned out that Microsoft was also trying to diversify their products instead of just producing computer software. Microsoft then created Windows Vista and Zune, both of which failed horribly. Zune was a music player, and according to review, a really good one. The only reason why Zune flopped is because Apple had already released the iPod, which had became the dominant choice in the MP3 market. Windows Vista was waited for with much anticipation, but after it was released, no one really bought it. Microsoft then released the Xbox 360, which was a huge hit. In 2009, they released Microsoft 7, and then in 2011, they released the Windows Phone 7(OS for Microsoft's phones, as the OS is not open source). This OS went more or less the same way Zune. They also created Cortana, a competition for Siri. Microsoft has only advanced from there. Currently, one of their shares is worth $181(This will change very often).