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
1980 – Otherwise known as “The 24th Man” (to join Microsoft, that is), Steve Ballmer came on as Microsoft’s first Business Manager. He made only $50k and stock options. Of course 30 years later, Steve succeeded Bill Gates as CEO of the Redmond based software company.
2004 – A free raster graphics editor, Paint.NET was created and released by Rick Brewster as a school project at Washington State University. The software was released under the MIT License and was at first Open Source. After multiple cases of plagiarism, the software moved to Creative Commons, then in version 3.36 was turned to closed-source (but still free).
The latest version of Paint.Net 4.0 uses NET framework 4.5.1.
1999 – In an effort to fix some minor issues, improve USB support and upgrade Internet Explorer, Microsoft launched Windows 98 SE (Second Edition). The upgrade version also improved WDM audio and modem support, shell updates and Web Folders (WebDAV). This was the last release of the 9x series.
Windows 98 SE were officially retired on July 11, 2006.
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.
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
1975 – Bill Gates and Paul Allen write a letter to the Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry System (MITS) stating they have BASIC language for the Intel 8080 processor and would like to incorporate on the Altair computer in exchange for royalty payments. MITS agrees and Micro-soft was born. Later it would become Microsoft.
1994 – It was a 6 year office romance that ended in marriage. Best part – where we hear marriages dissolve, this one has continued on for over 20 years. So we wish Bill and Melinda Gates a happy and joyous wedding anniversary. Since then the couple has been active in world poverty and education of children with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
On this day, we basically crunch numbers. This is where you will see companies let you know how much of their products are out there. How many copies of Windows have been sold, how many PC‘s were bought – how much shareware has been downloaded. These stats will drive how the next year is to be written. Then, they blank the numbers and start the crazy cycle all over again.The majority of the podcast will go over these statistics. But don’t worry – there is still a lot of other history to go through. But it’s still cool to know that in 1981, 250 million floppy disk drives were shipped to date…