Fast Facts about Microsoft
Microsoft was founded in 1975
by William Gates III and Paul Allen. It all began when the pair
teamed up at high school whilst programming on the original PDP-10
computer. In 1975 they collaborated on the first version of the
BASIC programming language, this led to the formation of
Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
In 1979 William Gates and Paul Allen moved the company to
their hometown of Seattle, Washington. Allen resigned in 1983 due
to bad health, but has since returned to the company on the board
of directors. The company has grown from 15 employees and $500,000
revenues in 1978 to over 14,000 employees and $3.8 billion
revenues for the year ending in June 1993. With over 50% of the
sales from overseas. In 1981 Microsoft released MS-DOS operating
system for the original IBM (PC).
Microsoft went on to convince other PC manufacturer to licence
MS-DOS this made the software standard for PC's. Throughout the
1980's Microsoft collaborated with IBM to create the first mass-market
phenomenon in the computer industry this was based on the open
availability of chips, parts and the MS-DOS operating system.
| 
