Microsoft: a company started by Bill Gates and Paul Allen when they bought DOS to try to incorporate it on IBM machines. Since then, Microsoft went on to produce Windows Operating System, the XBox and other various technologies. Wikipedia: Microsoft
1975– Paul Allen and Bill Gates founded Microsoft in Albuquerque, NM. The company was founded there simply because that is where Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) is located. The duo was building BASIC for the Altair 8800.
April 3, 1973: The first mobile cell phone call was made
1973 – Martin Cooper made the first handheld cellular phone call in public. Walking down the streets of New York, Cooper – the General Manager of Motorola’s communication system division – talked on the phone. It’s not the first cellular call since car phones have been around before then. The phone is also known as the “Brick” cell phone.
1988 – The Graphical User Interface (GUI) is what we use daily to open up email, our web browser and even those apps on your smartphone or tablet. With the first real GUI came the first copyright infringement for it as Apple sued both Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard for stealing features from Macintosh’s interface.
Hewlett Packard was also named for their New Wave desktop environment. Missing from the suit is Microsoft Presentation Manager, which became the interface for IBM’s OS/2.
The lawsuit got muddied when Xerox sued Apple for the same thing. That instance got thrown out rather quick. But the original suit lasted until 1994 when the court ruled: “Apple cannot get patent-like protection for the idea of a graphical user interface, or the idea of a desktop metaphor…”
Apple tried to take the case to the Supreme Court but was denied.
February 25, 1999 – hacker Gigabyte hacks C# language[/caption]
1999 – Microsoft’s newest programming language at the time – C# (pronounced “C-Sharp”) was hacked on this day. The perpetrator was a seventeen year old female hacker from Belgium, calling herself “Gigabyte”.
2002 – Gigabyte posts the source code to the virus on her website. Kim Vanvaeck would be arrested in 2004 for writing the malicious code. The reason why she did it?
I want to let people (and especially guys) know there ARE girls out there who like computers and for more than games. I think that’s quite important … for all girls out there who know something about computers but are surrounded by guys who think they’re all stupid..
February 17, 2000: Microsoft released Windows 2000[/caption]
2000 – Microsoft released the next version of the Windows Operating system in Windows 2000. Also known at Windows NT 5.0, it was the beginning of merging the NT and 9x versions. Of course, the companion was Windows ME, which didn’t do too well. The end result streamlined the two OS into Windows XP.
2008 – Microsoft officially made a move to put a bid in for Yahoo! They announced a plan of $31 a share, which was 62 percent of premium common stock from Yahoo! This was not the first time Microsoft had made a play for the company, but this was the most covered by press. Yahoo! would eventually decline the offer of Microsoft, claiming they undervalued the company. This would bring Carl Ichan to the forefront which would lead to months of speculation and debate. Although Yahoo! did not take the bid, they did end up selling the search assets in 2009 under Carl Bartz CEO reign.
2012 – Facebook files for Public IPO. Trading began on May 18, 2012 at $38 and closed at $38.23
2000 – Microsoft CEO Bill Gates announces he will be stepping down from his role but remain on the Board and embrace a new role as Chief software architect. Steve Ballmer will take over the CEO role and also remain president.
Love him or hate him, Ballmer kept Microsoft running and helped raise annual revenues. Ballmer would remain CEO of Microsoft until February 2014, then take over as the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers.
Bill Gates continued on the board. In 2014 he stepped down to Technology Advisor. Gates is also co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation