Happy birthday to Microsoft, as the company celebrates its 39th birthday today. It was on this day in 1975 that Microsoft was founded. Bill Gates took the helm right from the start with friend Paul Allen serving as right-hand man. Allen had originally suggested that the company be called Micro-Soft, but the sensible decision to drop the hyphen was taken. Now, nearly, four decades later the company continues to go from strength to strength.
While Microsoft is now most readily associated with Redmond, Washington, the company was founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Starting off in true geeky form, Microsoft was founded off the back of a BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800. The 80s kicked off with a venture into the world of Linux (oh, yes!) but very soon after this MS-DOS made an appearance, and started to make a name for Microsoft.
But the face of computing was to change completely with the emergence of Windows. It was Windows 3.0 that really captured the public imagination and Windows 95 revolutionized the way in which computer users interacted with their systems. The rest, as they say, is history. There have now been numerous upgrades to Windows and Microsoft has branched out into enterprise, business, entertainment and much, much more.
Few could have imagined that a company that had such humble beginning could transform itself into a force to be reckoned with. Microsoft now has forty years under its belt, and it will be fascinating to see what the next forty hold.
So, here’s to Microsoft… not looking too bad for having hit the very late thirties!
