Microsoft Corp - Early History

EARLY HISTORY

In February of 1975, nineteen-year-old Harvard University student William H. Gates and twenty-one-year-old Honeywell employee Paul Allen created a version of the computer language known as BASIC (Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) for Altair, the world's first personal computer, which was manufactured in Albuquerque, New Mexico, by MITS. Because BASIC had never been copyrighted or patented by its developers—Dartmouth College mathematics professors Thomas Kurtz and John G. Kemeny—several variations had cropped up, including the one developed by Allen and Gates, who had been childhood friends in their hometown of Seattle, Washington. Eventually, Gates also created DiskBASIC, a disk management program. Along with dreaming up new ways to use BASIC, one of Gates' first major innovations was a legal contract by which a hardware developer could utilize and market versions of a software language owned by the creator of the language; this contract became the model upon which future software licensing agreements were based. On April 4th, Gates and Allen officially founded Microsoft. The next year, Gates left Harvard, opting to work full-time at the new company. He established a headquarters office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and hired four programmers.

Microsoft released a software product based on a version of the Fortran programming language in July of 1977. Roughly one year later, a product based on COBOL-80 was launched. The firm also licensed its BASIC software to Radio Shack and Apple Computer and made its first international move when it established an office in Japan. Sales reached $1 million. When companies like Sirius, Zenith Electronics, Sharp, and Texas Instruments started using Microsoft products in conjunction with the CP/M operating system, Microsoft became the largest U.S. distributor of microcomputer languages.

It was in 1979 that Microsoft left New Mexico to establish its headquarters in Bellevue, Washington. A more sophisticated version of FORTRAN was developed for a new chip that could handle additional memory. With 25 employees and revenues of $2.5 million, Microsoft sold its one millionth copy of BASIC. In November of 1980, IBM Corp. asked Microsoft to develop four languages, as well as an operating system, for its new PCs. That year, the firm also released Softcard, which allowed Microsoft BASIC to operate on Apple II machines.

Gates and Allen incorporated their business on June 25, 1981. Gates was appointed president and chairman of the board, while Allen was named executive vice president. In August, IBM began selling PCs powered by Microsoft's new operating system, known as MS-DOS. Within in several months, more than 50 microcomputer manufacturers had licensed MS-DOS. Microsoft moved into Europe by creating a subsidiary in England in 1982. That year, the firm unveiled Multiplan Electronic Worksheet, which became InfoWorld magazine's "Software Product of the Year." Employees reached roughly 200.