More than 44 years after its founding in April 1975, Microsoft is still one of the most important IT companies in the world. The group operates branches in more than 100 countries, there are eleven locations in Germany alone. But the exciting innovations come from other companies. Microsoft recently wrote negative headlines, especially with repeated layoffs, including the largest wave of layoffs in its history. At least Microsoft was able to win back the city of Munich as a customer. Microsoft relocated its German headquarters from to Munich in 2016 and now pays trade tax in Munich. And Munich is burying the Limux lighthouse project - and wasting millions of euros in taxpayers' money by switching from Windows to Linux, as the taxpayers' association criticizes with Microsoft Consulting Firm.

Anyone who understands the history of the software giant cannot help but get the impression that the group was very sluggish for a long time. The core business still consists of selling Windows and Microsoft Office . Both products that the company has been offering for decades - and with Windows 10, Microsoft was able to regain some of the trust it had lost. Despite the disastrous course of the October 2018 update. But Microsoft boss Satya Nadella wants to transform the group more and more into a cloud-based company. This also affects Office and Windows. But the current products from Microsoft should not be discussed here, instead we look back at the history of the Redmond company.

The 1970s: Technologically a different world



To understand Microsoft's influence on the present, it helps to look into the past. Let's think back to the 1970s. Microcomputers already exist, but few have heard of the transistor boxes. The technology is practically irrelevant for the normal consumer - without an operating system suitable for amateurs, compatible technology or areas of application, there is simply no access with Microsoft Consulting Chicago.

Nerds, as they are in the book

Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen However, it was already clear at the time what potential there was in the computers, which received little public attention. The two, close friends since childhood, came as close to the cliché of nerds as you can get. They often skipped classes at the prestigious private school, Lakeside School, to spend their time in the computer lab.

They were united by one vision early on: there should be a computer on every desk, whether at home or at work. It was clear to them that a bridge had to be built between the then abstract calculating machines and the end user. A few years later, the two gave up their studies and devoted themselves entirely to their passion for bits and bytes. They would soon become pioneers in the software market, developing programs that would change the world. This is how the history of Microsoft begins. 📧 Feedback to PC-WORLD

Microsoft

Microsoft is a leading global provider of computer software and hardware, mobile and gaming systems, and cloud services. Microsoft's corporate headquarters are in Redmond, Washington. Microsoft has offices in more than 60 countries.

Founding of Microsoft

Microsoft's roots date back to 1975, when the first commercially available personal computer appeared on the cover of Popular Electronics  magazine. The Altair 8800  was a rudimentary system, but it found a market for home computing and created a new demand for software for use with those systems.

Bill Gates and his friend Paul Allen immediately saw the potential. Gates contacted the manufacturer Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) and offered to write a program for the new computer. Gates and Allen created an interpreter for BASIC, then a mainframe programming language, for use with the Altair.

MITS hired Gates and Allen in 1975. A year later they left the company to have more time for their own young company. In 1981 they finally founded Microsoft. In March 1986 the company went public.

MS DOS

Microsoft's big breakthrough came in 1981 when the company provided an operating system, dubbed PC-DOS by IBM , for the first IBM PC. Microsoft also marketed its own version of it, called MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System). In the early 1980s, both IBM and Microsoft were growing rapidly. Microsoft dominated the software market, IBM the PC market. A PC - other than Apple computers - was commonly referred to as an "IBM-compatible" clone; these contained microprocessors from Intel.

Microsoft Windows

In 1983 Microsoft presented its first Windows operating system, Windows 1.0, which was not released until November 1985. Windows 1.0 was heavily influenced by Apple's existing graphical user interface and was more user-friendly than DOS's command-line interface. For example, Windows 1.0 included menus that users could access with a keyboard or mouse.

Microsoft has since released a variety of consumer operating systems including Windows 3.0 in May 1990, Windows 95 in August 1995 (later upgraded to Windows 98), Windows XP in October 2001, Windows Vista in January 2007, Windows 7 in October 2009, Windows 8 in October 2012 (later upgraded to Windows 8.1), and Windows 10 in July 2015 as the latest OS release.

Microsoft Windows Server

Microsoft also plays an important role in data centers with its server operating systems. These give organizations powerful administrative control over large enterprise networks and services. Key features of the Windows server operating system include Active Directory , which automates management of user data, security, and distributed resources, and enables interoperability with other directories; and Server Manager , a utility for managing server roles and making configuration changes, either on local or remote computers.