Microsoft was founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, New Mexico on April 4, 1975.
Microsoft is a combination of the words "microcomputer" and "software," and the name was originally spelled as "Micro-soft." Allen is credited with coming up with the name.
Microsoft made $16,005 in revenue in its first year of operation.
Microsoft entered the operating system business in 1980 with its own version of Unix, called Xenix.
Bill Gates was known to have memorized employees' license plates just to track their comings and goings to work in Microsoft's early days. "Eventually I had to loosen up, as the company got to a reasonable size," he later said.
IBM contacted Microsoft in July 1980 inquiring about programming languages for its upcoming PC line; after failed negotiations with another company, IBM gave Microsoft a contract in November 1980 to provide a version of the CP/M operating system, which was set to be used in the upcoming IBM Personal Computer. For this deal, Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products, branding it as MS-DOS, which IBM rebranded to PC DOS.
Following the release of the IBM PC in August 1981, Microsoft retained ownership of MS-DOS. Due to various factors, such as MS-DOS's available software selection, Microsoft eventually became the leading PC operating systems vendor.
Microsoft was restructured in 1981 to become an incorporated business in its home state of Washington.
Paul Allen resigned from Microsoft in 1983 after developing Hodgkin's disease.
Bill Gates first presented to the public the Microsoft operating system Windows 1.0 on November 10, 1983. It ran on 2 floppy disks and 192 KB of RAM.
Windows 1.0 was officially released on November 20, 1985 as the first version of the Microsoft Windows line. Since then, new versions of Windows have gone on sale every three years.
Almost 90% of desktop and laptop computers use Windows.
Mircosoft included Solitaire in their operating systems to "to soothe people intimidated by the operating system" and introduce users to graphic user interfaces and taught them how to use a mouse.
In 1998, Microsoft's "DirectX" team pitched a new gaming console known as the "directXbox". Later shortened to "Xbox".
Microsoft executives originally disliked the Xbox's moniker, and only left it on the prospective name list during focus testing to show how unpopular it would be. However, it ended up being much more popular than all the alternatives.
Bill Gates handed over the CEO position on January 13, 2000, to Steve Ballmer, an old college friend of Gates and employee of the company since 1980, creating a new position for himself as Chief Software Architect.
Microsoft invested $150 million in Apple Computers to downplay antitrust claims on August 6, 1997.
In 2000 Microsoft was ruled to have violated United States antitrust laws by keeping "an oppressive thumb" on its competitors. It settled with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2004.
Microsoft bought all the rights to a Corbis stock photo called Bliss, better known as the Windows XP default wallpaper, for over $100,000. It was the second largest amount of money ever paid to a photographer for a single photograph at the time of sale.
Microsoft filed a patent in 2011 for media DRM based on monitoring users with cameras connected to a video game console.
It was announced in 2011 that Microsoft had closed a deal to purchase the internet phone service Skype for $8.5 billion.
The European Court of Justice rejected an appeal in 2012 by Microsoft, confirming a fine of €860 million for the abuse of its dominant position in the market.
Introduced in 2012, Microsoft's logo consists of a square divided into four sub-squares colored red, green, yellow and blue.
Microsoft Edge is a web browser developed by Microsoft and included in the company's Windows operating system. It was originally built on Microsoft's own proprietary browser engine, EdgeHTML, and their Chakra JavaScript engine and rolled out to consumers on July 28, 2015.
Microsoft is a combination of the words "microcomputer" and "software," and the name was originally spelled as "Micro-soft." Allen is credited with coming up with the name.
Microsoft made $16,005 in revenue in its first year of operation.
Microsoft entered the operating system business in 1980 with its own version of Unix, called Xenix.
Bill Gates was known to have memorized employees' license plates just to track their comings and goings to work in Microsoft's early days. "Eventually I had to loosen up, as the company got to a reasonable size," he later said.
IBM contacted Microsoft in July 1980 inquiring about programming languages for its upcoming PC line; after failed negotiations with another company, IBM gave Microsoft a contract in November 1980 to provide a version of the CP/M operating system, which was set to be used in the upcoming IBM Personal Computer. For this deal, Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products, branding it as MS-DOS, which IBM rebranded to PC DOS.
Following the release of the IBM PC in August 1981, Microsoft retained ownership of MS-DOS. Due to various factors, such as MS-DOS's available software selection, Microsoft eventually became the leading PC operating systems vendor.
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| Paul Allen (l.) and Bill Gates (r.) on October 19, 1981, in a sea of PCs after signing a pivotal contract with IBM |
Microsoft was restructured in 1981 to become an incorporated business in its home state of Washington.
Paul Allen resigned from Microsoft in 1983 after developing Hodgkin's disease.
Bill Gates first presented to the public the Microsoft operating system Windows 1.0 on November 10, 1983. It ran on 2 floppy disks and 192 KB of RAM.
Windows 1.0 was officially released on November 20, 1985 as the first version of the Microsoft Windows line. Since then, new versions of Windows have gone on sale every three years.
 |
| Windows 1.0 was released as the first version of the Microsoft Windows line. |
Almost 90% of desktop and laptop computers use Windows.
Mircosoft included Solitaire in their operating systems to "to soothe people intimidated by the operating system" and introduce users to graphic user interfaces and taught them how to use a mouse.
In 1998, Microsoft's "DirectX" team pitched a new gaming console known as the "directXbox". Later shortened to "Xbox".
Microsoft executives originally disliked the Xbox's moniker, and only left it on the prospective name list during focus testing to show how unpopular it would be. However, it ended up being much more popular than all the alternatives.
Bill Gates handed over the CEO position on January 13, 2000, to Steve Ballmer, an old college friend of Gates and employee of the company since 1980, creating a new position for himself as Chief Software Architect.
Microsoft invested $150 million in Apple Computers to downplay antitrust claims on August 6, 1997.
In 2000 Microsoft was ruled to have violated United States antitrust laws by keeping "an oppressive thumb" on its competitors. It settled with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2004.
 |
| Bill Gates giving his deposition in 1998 for the United States v. Microsoft trial |
Microsoft bought all the rights to a Corbis stock photo called Bliss, better known as the Windows XP default wallpaper, for over $100,000. It was the second largest amount of money ever paid to a photographer for a single photograph at the time of sale.
Microsoft filed a patent in 2011 for media DRM based on monitoring users with cameras connected to a video game console.
It was announced in 2011 that Microsoft had closed a deal to purchase the internet phone service Skype for $8.5 billion.
The European Court of Justice rejected an appeal in 2012 by Microsoft, confirming a fine of €860 million for the abuse of its dominant position in the market.
Introduced in 2012, Microsoft's logo consists of a square divided into four sub-squares colored red, green, yellow and blue.
Microsoft Edge is a web browser developed by Microsoft and included in the company's Windows operating system. It was originally built on Microsoft's own proprietary browser engine, EdgeHTML, and their Chakra JavaScript engine and rolled out to consumers on July 28, 2015.
In late 2018, it was announced that Edge would be completely rebuilt as a Chromium-based browser with Blink and V8 engines. The new Edge was publicly released in January 2020, and on Xbox platforms in 2021. Microsoft has since terminated security support for the original Internet Explorer browser, and in Windows 11 it is the default web browser (for compatibility with Google Chrome).
The NFL was paid $400 million to use Microsoft tablets – but the announcers kept calling them iPads.
Microsoft Flight Simulator is the longest-running running software product line for Microsoft, predating Windows by three years.
Microsoft’s corporate headquarters is located at One Microsoft Way in Redmond, Washington.
The NFL was paid $400 million to use Microsoft tablets – but the announcers kept calling them iPads.
Microsoft Flight Simulator is the longest-running running software product line for Microsoft, predating Windows by three years.
Microsoft’s corporate headquarters is located at One Microsoft Way in Redmond, Washington.
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