The story of Microsoft
By The Forex Review - 04 / January / 21 530
Dominick Bell
Microsoft is one of the largest multinational corporations developing and producing software for personal computers, mobile devices, game consoles, etc.
1970-е
Founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen after they created the Basic programming language interpreter for the Altair 8080, one of the first microcomputers.
The first partnership agreement was with Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS). MITS paid Microsoft three thousand dollars for exclusive use of Basic; in addition, a royalty of $30 to $75 was paid on each copy sold. After earning $16,000 in a couple of months, Gates decided to expand and entered into several agreements to develop Basic for devices from General Electric, Citibank and NCR.
In 1977, Microsoft introduced Fortran, Cobol and Assembler languages specifically for the Altair CP/M operating system. That same year, the company had a conflict with MITS, which began by prohibiting the latter from distributing the programming language to third party products. In response, Microsoft representatives went to court; they wanted to terminate the contract with MITS under the pretext of insufficient efforts on the part of the company to promote Altair Basic. The court sided with Microsoft, after which the company immediately entered into a contract with Apple, though they did not seek payment from each copy sold, limiting it to a one-time payment of $21,000. This was a mistake, because Basic was used in the Apple II, which sold over a million copies.
microsoftIn 1978, Microsoft began developing programming languages for platforms based on the Intel 8080 processor. It was a great success, so by the end of the year the company had its first office in Japan and more than a million dollars in revenue.
1980-е
The year 1980 was a landmark year for the corporation. Microsoft acquired a new partner in Steve Ballmer and moved to a new office in Washington, DC. However, the main event was the acquisition of the Quick and Dirty Operating System (QDOS), written by Tim Paterson.
In 1981, this system was renamed IBM PC DOS (and later MS-DOS) and sold to IBM, who used it to release their first personal computer, the IBM PC. Also that year, Microsoft is renamed Microsoft Inc., Gates becomes president of the corporation (53% ownership), Allen as executive vice president (35%) and Ballmer as chief commercial officer (8%). Shares unallocated among management were given to Microsoft employees.
In 1983, the corporation decided to look beyond its partnership with IBM and began to release MS-DOS for IBM PC compatible computers, which turned Microsoft into a major supplier of operating platforms and software for them.
The same year saw the introduction of word processing software called Microsoft Word and spreadsheet software called Multiplan, later renamed Excel, as everyone knew it today.
In 1984, branded computer mouse called Microsoft Mouse was launched.
1985 was a landmark year for the Corporation, the year in which the first version of the now world's most popular operating system, Windows, was unveiled. At the time, it was simply an add-on to MS-DOS with a graphical interface and multi-tasking capability. A dedicated suite of Windows office software was also developed. In fairness it's worth mentioning that the first system wasn't a great success as it wasn't stable and worked rather slowly but it was a start of a long journey.
In 1986 Microsoft listed its stock on the stock exchange. The corporation already had 1,442 employees at the time. Also in that year Microsoft Works, a suite of applications for the Apple Macintosh, was released.
In 1987, the company launched two operating systems at once, Windows 2.0 and Microsoft OS/2. The latter was created in partnership with IBM, and Microsoft was involved in upgrading it until 1990.
1990-е
1990 brings us Windows 3.0, a version of the platform that managed to win the hearts of users and significantly strengthen the corporation. In addition, Windows 3.0 added Chinese and Japanese language support, taking Microsoft into new markets. The same year saw the introduction of the first version of Microsoft's popular Office suite. All this allowed the corporation to cross the billion-dollar revenue line.
In 1993 32-bit Windows NT was introduced, targeted at advanced and corporate users. Microsoft Encarta, an electronic multimedia encyclopaedia, was also released.
microsoftIn 1994, the then-large IT company Netscape Communications released its own browser and immediately became the leader in a still-emerging market. Microsoft, not wanting to remain in the shadows, licensed Spyglass Mosaic and used it to launch Internet Explorer. As a result, the corporation easily won the browser race, simply by making Internet Explorer a native Windows 98 program.
Microsoft continued to develop its own platform and software, and a lot of time was also devoted to developing and releasing new products. By the end of the 90's the corporation was making $20 billion in profits and Bill Gates was named the richest man on the planet. The period was even called "Wintel" because Microsoft was the undisputed leader in platforms and software and Intel was the processor manufacturer.
2000-е
Naturally, it was their "vertigo" from success that caused the corporation to stray from the right track: in 2000, they released Windows ME (Millennium Edition), the most unsuccessful version of the platform, later to be dubbed Mistake Edition. It was also, incidentally, the last version based on MS-DOS.
However, that dark streak didn't last long, Windows NT for business users was released in 2000 which was later renamed Windows 2000 and in 2001 the very successful Windows XP appeared which remained the world's most popular platform for eight years, selling around 400 million copies in five years.
It is worth noting that Microsoft has never dwelled only on the design and development of operating systems and software, in addition to the race Internet browsers, which resulted, as we wrote above appeared Internet Explorer, the corporation was involved in a race and network search engines with Google and Yahoo!
Microsoft sensed new trends and in the late 90s the company turned its attention to the market for portable devices and video games. Thus, in 1998 users were introduced Windows Mobile - a platform for mobile devices, and in 2001 the Xbox gaming console. In addition, Microsoft released computer games and its own software platforms that included .Net, ActiveX and Silverlight, among others.
In 2006, Microsoft decided to take a head-to-head with Apple and responded with the iPod by introducing its Zune range of mp3 players but after three years, it had managed to capture just 2% of the media player market. Most likely, the same fate would have awaited the tablet, created as an alternative to the iPad, on which the corporation was also working at the time.
Nevertheless, Microsoft's main focus after 2000 was to work on a new version of the operating system that could seriously compete with its predecessor, Windows XP. "Change" wasn't ready until 2007, which is when Windows Vista was presented in January. Unfortunately this version was not able to "outrun" its predecessor as most users felt that Windows XP was far more stable and user friendly.
Rumors emerged that Windows 7 was in active development as early as 2008 and was officially unveiled in 2009. It was greeted by users more warmly than Vista, however XP was not as popular as it had been.
In 2010 Windows Phone was presented, which was a completely updated Windows Mobile, and the following year the corporation signed a contract with Nokia, according to which the Finnish company began producing its own smartphones on the new Microsoft mobile platform.
Microsoft2012 was a milestone for the corporation - the platform for both personal computers and mobile devices was fundamentally upgraded and the world saw the now famous "live" tiles. The operating systems were named Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 respectively. Soon the first branded Surface tablet was released.
Today, the corporation's products are sold in 80 countries around the world and its software is translated into 45 languages, but it cannot be said that Microsoft is currently at its best. For example, on the market of mobile device platforms it lags far behind iOS and Android, but Bill Gates announced at the presentation of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 that it is the beginning of a large plan to unify the operating systems, which will result in the world to see the first universal platform. Well, Microsoft has always strived for leadership, it won't stop now.
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