1975 was the year
Microsoft was born. Today, this
software giant is 25 years old.
To start, the company didn't even have a name, it wasn't until November 1975 that the name Micro-Soft was coined - nearly a year after co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen first teamed up. Despite the recent publicity, there is more to the Redmond, Washington company than Windows and anti-trust trials.
1975 - Harvard dropout Bill Gates and his friend Paul Allen created Basic, the first programme for a P-C, and set up shop in New Mexico.
1977 - Microsoft shipped Fortran, it's second product. (soon after, business began to pick up.)
1981 - a year after moving the Microsoft headquarters from New Mexico to Washington State, I-B-M introduced it's first personal computer. It just happened to run on Microsoft's 16-bit operating system M-S-dos 1.0, Basic, Cobol and Pascal.
1983 - Paul Allen stepped down as Vice President, but stayed on as a board member. The Microsoft mouse and Microsoft World were released and on November 10th, the first versions of Windows made it's debut.
1985 - The operating system began shipping.
1986 - March 13th, Microsoft joined the NASDAQ under the ticker M-S-F-T and began it's legendary climb to the stratosphere!
1990 - In May, Microsoft launched Windows 3.0.
Microsoft kept things rolling by continually revamping its signature operating systems, hitting peak in 1995, with Windows '95 selling 1 million copies in 4 days!
Three years later, with an anti-trust battle starting against the US-Department of Justice, Microsoft released Windows 98!.
2000 - In January, Bill Gates stepped down as Chief Executive Officer. A month later, Windows 2000 made it's debut and, of course, through it all, the anti-trust battle has continued with the Department of Justice.
No matter what happens in the company's future, there can be no denying that Microsoft has played a major role in creating the software industry as we know it today.