The Long & Colourful History of Microsoft

There can’t be many people who wouldn’t recognise an image of Bill Gates, the university drop out who first created windows technology, enabling the PC user to open, close, minimise and maximise windows, having several open at one time. Bill was always a productive child and his love of computing was matched by his best friend at the time, Paul Allen and in 1972, they managed to sell a computer that analysed road traffic data, under the name of Traf-O-Data.

Microsoft

The company was born in 1975, with a partnership between the two, while Gates became CEO, and after a few years developing specific software, they launched their first operating system (OS) in 1980, with a version of the Unix system, called Xenix and that became the platform for Windows 3.1 which attracted the likes of IBM, who had a CP/M OS installed, which was created by Microsoft.

The Birth of Ms Windows

The year as 1985 and the world was introduced to a revolutionary OS and the company moved its HQ to Washington and when the company went public one year later, the soaring stock made a few billionaires and lots of millionaires. The Windows OS was sold to almost all of the computer manufacturers and was licensed accordingly, while undergoing constant improvements.

Enter Microsoft Office

In 1990, the company released the Ms Office suite of programs, which included Word and Excel, which we are all so familiar with, and if you run a small business, make sure that you go online and organise Microsoft 365 Setup by Computer Trouble Shooters, which gives you access to their amazing suite of applications.

Office Applications

These essential business tools include:

  • Ms Word – A word processor with many powerful features.
  • Ms Excel – Spreadsheets and accounts.
  • Ms PowerPoint – Create slide presentations.
  • Ms Access – Creating Databases.
  • Ms Publisher – Creating magazines and brochures.

If you would like to access these applications, Microsoft 365 is the cloud-based set of Office suites and once you have registered and subscribed, you can create, store and update files, as can authorised personnel. Now is the time to invest in business IT solutions and talking to an IT support company would get you started.

Windows 95, XP and Xbox

As the Internet exploded, Microsoft was somehow able to get in at the very start by developing web browsers like Internet Explorer and this dominance impeded small tech companies such as Novell, WordPerfect and IBM and in 1995, the company launched Windows 95 and this offered an Internet bundle that included Internet Explorer, a web browser. A huge marketing campaign ensured that Windows 95 had massive sales and in 2001, Windows XP was unveiled to the waiting world. Xbox was launched later in the same year and it became a serious competitor to Nintendo and Sony, while in 2005, came the Xbox 360.

Fast forward and we have Windows 10, which is the most stable of all the Windows platforms and all the computers you use are likely to be licenced for Windows 10.