April 4, 1975: Birth of Microsoft
Microsoft (who first called Micro-Soft) was founded April 4, 1975 by Paul Allen, then aged 22, and Bill Gates, 20, both students at Harvard. Their first move: to develop the basic interpreter for Altair 8080. After Micral in 1972, it is one of the first computers sold commercially. Carrying a Intel microprocessor, it was initially limited to assembly language. In the process, the two founders set up their company in a motel in Albuquerque, New Mexico (just steps from the headquarters of MITS , manufacturer of the Altair).
November 6, 1980: Microsoft DOS wind IBM a non-exclusive …
Bill Gates signed November 6, 1980 a contract that will bring Microsoft in the big leagues. The editor, who is still a start-up, is chosen by IBM to develop the OS its first PC line (shipping 8088 x86 processor from Intel). Gates managed to double Digital Research, OS market leader at the time with his CP / M, whose proposal is not accepted. To realize his conjuring trick, Microsoft acquired QDOS, a clone of CP / M for 50,000 dollars. The stroke of genius? The contract with IBM is not exclusive. Microsoft will be able to sell its OS to other PC manufacturers. And Bill Gates has negotiated $ 35 per copy elapsed MS-DOS with every IBM PC. Millions of copies will be sold in 1981. It is the fortune.
March 13, 1986, between Microsoft stock exchange
Microsoft entered the Nasdaq in March 1986 and quickly reached one of the first places of the market in terms of market capitalization. A year later, at age 31, Bill Gates became a billionaire. Microsoft will make the most of this fundraiser. 198 million in 1986 sales climbed to $ 1 billion in 1990.
August 8 1989 launch of the first version of Office
Office version 1 was first launched for Mac
In August 1989 Office version 1 was launched. First marketed for Mac, includes the following in the same box as Microsoft office software sold separately since 1983. It is already composed of Word (4.0), Excel (2.2), PowerPoint (2.01) and Microsoft Mail. A year later, she released for Windows (3.0). In August 1995, the same time as Windows 95 (see below), it is the release of Office 95. With this new version, Microsoft finally established his supremacy in the market for office suites. According to Microsoft Excel is used by 30 million people in late 1995
July 9, 1993 . Windows Release NT
Windows NT (3.1) is launched in 1993. This is the first variant of Windows really cut out for the world of business. It has a server version which later became Windows Server. In May 1995, Windows NT Server 3.15 includes for the first time a Web server. This is the IIS birth. But this brick will fail to stem the rise in power of Apache launched the same year.
Released in August 1996, Windows NT 4.0 will however allow Microsoft to prevail in the company on the workstation. With a PC version equipped with the graphical interface of Windows 95, NT 4.0 comes with a quality server. He quickly reached a share of 65% higher world market and thus sign the decline of Novell Netware.
24 August 1995 release of Windows 95
Launched in version 1 in 1985 Windows was previously a graphic overlay to DOS. Windows 95, MS-DOS kernel is no longer visible. It is also the first version of the OS that includes a Start menu, as well as native support drivers that was so lacking in previous editions. Internet Explorer also appeared. Everything is there. Supporting 32bit architectures, Windows 95 is adapted to the PC 386 and the Pentium that mark the real start of the PC in the consumer segment.
Boosted by the support of major manufacturers such as HP and Compaq, Windows 95 achieved a market share of nearly 70% in 1997 … At the same time, Internet Explorer passes in a few years well ahead of Netscape. And with the next version of Windows (98), the gap is widening again. 80% in 1995, the AOL browser penetration rate is only 4.5% in 2001 … against 94.2% for Internet Explorer.
June 22, 2000: launch of the .Net strategy
Launched June 22, 2000 Bill Gates at a conference and Steve Ballmer, “.Net” (“dot net” in English) draws the strategy “all Internet” Microsoft. Objective: to change Windows solutions, server and workstation, to a new generation of application environment. The .Net framework launched in 2001 is room web technologies at the heart of the OS. The aim is to equip a Windows API layer that allows applications to talk together. At the time, Microsoft relies on SOAP. It’s finally REST that impose few years after the API market, particularly under the leadership of Google. The infrastructure also introduced the .Net C # object-oriented language which then is to respond to Sun’s Java
Finally, this strategy will fail to stem the rise of Apache or Java …
October 27, 2008: Microsoft unveils Azure
So that Amazon launched its cloud infrastructure for two years now, Microsoft unveils October 2008 on the Windows Azure project. The first Azure services will be marketed in 2010. This is initially a cloud platform. Since its launch, Azure opens development languages that Microsoft does not offer Windows Server, including Java and Ruby. That’s the surprise. In June 2012, Azure completed an infrastructure cloud. Again, Microsoft opts for the opening by offering both Windows and Linux virtual machines …. Since then, the cloud continues to expand at a rapid pace: the web hosting service, mobile apps backend, Hadoop cluster, Docker containers … However, Windows Azure (since renamed Microsoft Azure) remains behind Amazon Web Services in terms of market share, although the latest indicators suggest a gap that tightens.
February 4, 2014: appointment as CEO Satya Nadella
On 4 February 2014, Satya Nadella who was then vice president of Microsoft Enterprise and Cloud, was appointed CEO. He succeeds Steve Ballmer who himself had succeeded Bill Gates 14 years ago. The situation is so delicate. The PC market is in decline. Windows 8 that was to position Microsoft in the market for pain tablets to take off. As for Windows Phone, it does not exceed 3% market share, far behind iOS and Android (see the figures published by Business Insider then). To meet this challenge, Satya Nadella remobilization its teams, and redirect them towards innovation. To show this breach of policy, Windows will move directly to version 10. This will be a single OS, both for PCs, tablets, smartphones, large screens and connected devices, with the key to a collaborative development model involving users .
And 2015. Year of the launch of Windows 10
Windows 10 will be launched this summer. Beyond its multiplatform character, it aims to bring Windows into the era of innovation. For now in beta, Windows 10 integrates voice assistant Cortana (which was previously limited to Windows Phone), but also a new browser (codenamed Project Spartan), that is more modern and standardized Internet Explorer. Windows 10 will also be a version for holographic helmets for less original (Windows Holographic).
Bill Gates wrote a letter to employees
On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the group, Bill Gates did not hesitate to send a letter to all Group employees (see the tweet below). Recalling that the original purpose of the founders was to put a PC on every desk and in every home, it evokes the revolution that Microsoft is going through. “We already live in a multiplatform world in which computers will be increasingly present,” he says. “We are approaching the time when computers and robots will be able to see, move and interact naturally … Under the direction of Nadella, Microsoft is better positioned than ever to meet these challenges.”
While Bill Gates still has a role of advisor to Satya Nadella, the founder has definitely left the Microsoft board of directors in January 2015.
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