A look at Microsoft History – The Seventies

1975
January 1. The MITS Altair 8800 appears on the cover of Popular Electronics, inspiring Paul Allen and Bill Gates to develop a BASIC language for the Altair.
February 1. Bill Gates and Paul Allen sell BASIC, the first computer language program for a personal computer, to Microsoft’s first customer, MITS of Albuquerque, NM.
March 1. Paul Allen joins MITS as director of software.
April 7. “Altair BASIC?Up and Running,” declares the headline of the first edition of MITS Computer Notes.
July 1. BASIC officially ships as version 2.0 in both 4K and 8K editions.

1976
February 3. Bill Gates is one of the first programmers to raise the issue of software piracy. In “An Open Letter to Hobbyists,” first published in MITS Computer Notes, Gates accuses hobbyists of stealing software and thus preventing “…good software from being written.” He prophetically concludes with the line, “…Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software.”
March 27. Bill Gates gives the opening address at the First Annual World Altair Computer Convention, held in Albuquerque.
November 1. Paul Allen resigns from MITS to join Microsoft full time.
November 26. The trade name Microsoft is registered with the Office of the Secretary of the State of New Mexico.

1977
February 3. Paul Allen and Bill Gates execute an official partnership agreement.
July 1. FORTRAN-80, Microsoft’s second language product, is available.

1978
November 1. Microsoft establishes its first international sales office in Japan, ASCII Microsoft.
December 31. Microsoft’s year-end sales exceed $1 million.

1979
January 1. Microsoft moves its offices to Bellevue, WA, from Albuquerque.

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A look at Microsoft History – The Eighties

While some of us were wearing tube socks and listening to “Wham” others were running multi-billionaire companies like Microsoft.  Here’s a look back at the 1980′s – Microsoft style.

1980  
June 11. Steve Ballmer joins Microsoft.

1981 
June 25. Microsoft reorganizes into a privately held corporation with Bill Gates as president and chairman of the board and Paul Allen as executive vice president. Microsoft becomes Microsoft, Inc., an incorporated business in the State of Washington.
August 12. IBM introduces its Personal Computer, which uses Microsoft’s 16-bit operating system, Microsoft® MS-DOS® version 1.0, plus Microsoft BASIC, Microsoft COBOL, Microsoft Pascal, and other Microsoft products.

1982
March 24. Microsoft U.K. Ltd. (United Kingdom) is incorporated.
June 28. Microsoft announces a new corporate logo, new packaging, and a comprehensive set of retail dealer support materials.

1983
February 18. Paul Allen resigns as Microsoft’s executive vice president, but remains on the Board of Directors.
May 2. Microsoft introduces the Microsoft Mouse.
September 29. Microsoft introduces Word for MS-DOS 1.00.
November 10. Microsoft unveils Microsoft Windows®, an extension of the MS-DOS operating system that provides a graphical operating environment. The first retail version of Windows would not ship until November 1985.

1984
January 24. Microsoft ships BASIC and Multiplan simultaneously with the introduction of the Macintosh, becoming a leader in developing software for Apple computers.
July 11. Microsoft Press introduces its first two titles: Cary Lu’s The Apple Macintosh Book and Peter Norton’s Exploring the IBM PC the Home Computer.

1985
August 12. Microsoft celebrates its 10th anniversary with Fiscal Year 1985 sales figures of $140 million.
September 3. Microsoft selects the Republic of Ireland as the site of its first production facility outside of the United States to produce software products to be sold in the European market. November 20. Microsoft ships the retail version of Microsoft Windows.

1986
February 26. Microsoft moves to a new corporate campus in Redmond, WA.
March 13. Microsoft stock goes public at $21 per share, rising to $28 per share by the end of the first trading day and raising $61 million.

1987
April 2. Microsoft and IBM announce OS/2. This is the first product to be announced as a result of the Joint Development Agreement between Microsoft and IBM in August 1985.
September 8. Microsoft ships its first CD-ROM application, Microsoft Bookshelf, a collection of 10 of the most popular and useful reference works on a single compact disc.

1988
January 13. Microsoft and Ashton-Tate announce Microsoft SQL Server™, relational database server software for Local Area Networks (LANs) based on a relational database management system licensed from Sybase.

1989
August 1. Microsoft announces Office, the first general business software for Macintosh systems available on CD-ROM.
November 13. Microsoft and IBM broaden the scope of their development agreement by agreeing to jointly develop a consistent, full range of systems software offerings for the 1990s. These software offerings will include enhancements to MS-DOS, Microsoft OS/2, and Microsoft LAN software and are compatible with the Intel 386 and 486 microprocessors.
December 27. Microsoft announces that Jon Shirley will retire as president and chief operating officer on June 30, 1990. Shirley, who has been president since August 1983, will continue to play a role in the management of the company as a member of the Board of Directors and as a consultant for strategic projects. 

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