A Brief History on Microsoft

8 January, 2018 | Della Wyler | IT Certifications, Microsoft
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With almost three decades worth of history, Microsoft still stands as one of the biggest tech companies in the world. In 1990, the same year the Hubble telescope was launched, Microsoft Office was officially introduced to the public. Since then, it has made so many contributions to the global population.  That’s why a Microsoft education offers so many opportunities. To better understand this company, here is a rundown of its milestones through the years.

Microsoft Education Starts with Understanding The History

The company was started by childhood buddies, Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Even before being tech savvy was mainstream, these two were already dedicated to mastering computers. During that time, that hobby was difficult to pursue because computers were hard to source. That’s why these two skipped classes just to spend time in the computer room. They were even caught hacking the school’s computer.

Classroom Heroes

Instead of getting expelled or earning their way to detention, they were let off with a warning if they both promised to improve the school computer’s performance. Because that meant unlimited computer access, they said yes. They were so good at it that they even sold the city of Seattle a computer that counted the city’s traffic.

It was in 1975, after Gates quit Harvard and after the pair developed a programming language for Altair, that Microsoft was born. In a year, they were registered as a business, with Bill Gates as CEO and Allen as Executive VP.

Microsoft Begins

Their first standout product was the Microsoft’s Operating Systems which is a software that computers need to operate. The first operating system the company released was Xenix. This was a version of Unix that was released in 1980. The OS was then used as a basis for the company’s first word-processor, the Multi-Tool Word. This was prior to Microsoft Word.

What really catapulted them to the top in the 80s was the Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS). They developed it for IBM and patterned from the QDOS which was made by Tim Paterson. With this program, the company made landmark business decision. They only licensed the software, retaining the rights to it and earning them a lot of money.

A Company of Many Talents

During this time, the company was also developing Windows. This was Microsoft’s bread and butter, a multitasking environment and graphical user interface specifically made for IBM. With all these achievements, the company finally went public in 86m making Gates a billionaire at 31.

Almost into the 90s, they released Microsoft Office. This is a set of programs — including a spreadsheet, presentation software, word possessor and more — that are still relevant to this day. Granted, they’ve seen many changes, but they were all developed from this collection.

In 1995, Microsoft pioneered a program that allows you to access the internet through the Internet Explorer 1.0. Since then, they’ve branched out gaming devices like the Xbox and hardware devices like the Microsoft Surface.

With a full and rich history like this, it’s no wonder that Microsoft is still one of the main developers of software in business and in life.  With a Microsoft education, your potential is unlimited.

Sources:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/about/company