The early years
Gates, born on October 28, 1955, had a passion for computers right from his school days. He made money from software even while at school!

Bill Gates and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen studied together in high school. In Lakeside Prep School, they had the first tryst with computers. Both of them had a great interest for computers and programming. They would spend hours in front of the computer.

The turning point in their lives was when they came across an article about the Altair 8000, a small computer. Gates and Allen approached the manufacturer, MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems) to launch a programming language for the computer even when they did not have the program ready.

However, in a span of eight weeks before the demonstration, Gates and Allen developed the interpreter. The interpreter worked at the demonstration and MITS agreed to distribute Altair BASIC. It was a great achievement for young Gates.

Passion for computers

In pursuit of his entrepreneurial dream, Gates moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where MITS was located. Gates and Allen realized there was huge potential in software languages. They saw a great opportunity in it.

To give shape to their dream, they founded Microsoft on April 4, 1975 in Albuquerque. Gates was only 20 years old then. The name ‘Microsoft’ was derived from the words ‘microcomputer’ and ‘software.’ The name was first used by Gates in a letter to Allen on November 29, 1974. It became a registered trademark in 1975. A few years down the line, Microsoft started gaining prominence with operating systems.

The first taste of success
Gates first tasted success with the MS-DOS operating system. In 1980, Microsoft joined hands with IBM. Under this pact, Microsoft’s operating system was bundled with IBM computers. This worked out well for Microsoft. Five years later, IBM wanted Microsoft to write a new operating system for their computers called the OS/2. Microsoft created the OS/2. However, Microsoft managed to get the rights, to market MS DOS separately besides the IBM deal. The Microsoft version emerged successful. The OS raked in fortunes for the company.

Image: Microsoft headquarters in Redmond. | Photograph: Photo Ron Wurzer/Getty Images

Why Microsoft is a hit

The company restructured on June 25, 1981, to become an incorporated business in Washington with a change of its name to ‘Microsoft, Inc’. Bill Gates became president of the company and chairman of the board, and Paul Allen became executive vice president. On February 16, 1986, Microsoft relocated to Redmond, Washington.

A month later, on March 13, the company went public with an IPO, raising $61 million at $21.00 per share. By the end of the trading day, the price had risen to $28.00. Soon Microsoft began introducing its office products. Microsoft Works, an office program which combined features in a word processor, spreadsheet, database and other office applications, was the first to be released.

It then went on to launch more remarkable products. However, the world’s most used software programs did not have a smooth and speedy launch. It was challenging to develop advanced software, Microsoft faced several glitches and legal issues initially.

"The success of Microsoft is really due to our relationship with developers. From those early days of getting people to write applications in BASIC, to getting people to write applications for MS-DOS, to get people to write graphical applications for Windows, that’s where we had our success. With things like Windows, it didn’t happen overnight. There were many years of getbting the system better, taking advantage of performance, improving the tools before that became a mainstream thing," Gates told software developers at Microsoft’s TechEd conference about his transition on June 3.

The wonder of Windows
Microsoft introduced its successful office product, Microsoft Office on August 8, 1989. Microsoft Office had applications like Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel etc. On May 22, 1990 Microsoft launched Windows 3.0.

Later it was followed successive versions — Windows 95, 98 and 2000. More than 1 million copies of Microsoft Windows 95 were sold within 4 days of its launch.With several versions of Microsoft Windows, the company captured over 90 per cent market share.

Innovations continued to rule at Microsoft. In 2001, Microsoft launched Office XP, followed by Windows XP. In 2002, Microsoft and partners launch Tablet PC. Microsoft launches Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office System to consumers worldwide.

Today, the company manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices. The most popular products are Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software.

Innovation the buzzword

From just two co-founders who struggled to put things in place in a challenging environment, the Microsoft family has grown stronger by 78,000 employees spread across in 105 countries. Today, Microsoft has revenues of $51.12 billion for the fiscal year ending June 2007.

From July, Gates will hand over the entire responsibility of running the software giant with one of the world’s most aggressive CEOs, Steve Ballmer. Ballmer believes that innovation is the secret of Microsoft’s success story.

"Why is Microsoft a big company? Microsoft is not successful because we are big. We did something that people really like. People wanted it and they bought it," Ballmer says with confidence.

And how big is Microsoft? Well, quite big, actually. It makes profits of about $60 million every 24 hours!

But what will Microsoft be like after Bill Gates? Keep watching this space over the next few days as we bring to you a series of articles and opinions on Gates and Microsoft.

Credits:
Image1 : Pictures of Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates (L) and Paul Allen, from the early 1970′s, were on display at the Microsoft Visitor Centre in Redmond, Washington. | Photograph: Ron Wurzer/Getty Images
Image2: Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen (L) watch the Western Conference Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Portland Trail Blazers in Portland on 26 May 2000 | Photograph: George Frey/AFP/Getty Images
Image3: A customer checks software packages of US software giant Microsoft at a Tokyo computer shop. | Photograph: Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images
Image4: A customer looks at a display of desktop computers running the new Microsoft Windows Vista operating system . | Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Image5: Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates Pose in Seattle after Gates announced Ballmer as the company’s New Chief Executive Officer on January 13, 2000. | Photograph: Getty Images

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