steve ballmer

June 11, 1980: Steve Ballmer Joins Microsoft

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0611, apple, apple releases, based software, Bill Gates, business, business manager, cell phone camera, day in tech history, geek history, Google, Microsoft, microsoft team, Microsoft Windows, mozy, phillippe kahn, Podcast, steve ballmer, stock options, Windows 8 0 Comments June 11, 2025

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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.

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Speak and Spell debuts

Compaq purchases DEC for $9 million

The first cameraphone photo – Philippe Kahn taking a picture of his newborn daughter

Apple releases Safari for Windows

1st generation iPhone gets put on the Obsolete list

Day in Tech History/ Microsoft

January 13, 2000: Steve Ballmer Takes the Microsoft Reins

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0113, aggregator, Atari, bill and melinda gates foundation, Bill Gates, board of directors, carol bartz, ceo, ceo position, commodore, commodore international, day in tech history, Geek, iomega, iTunes, jack tramiel, Los Angeles Clippers, Microsoft, Microsoft SQL Server, mozy, Podcast, RSS, steve ballmer, syquest, technology history, Yahoo 0 Comments January 13, 2025

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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

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Carol Bartz accepts the CEO position at Yahoo
Iomega acquires SyQuest
Microsoft SQL Server is announced

Day in Tech History/ Microsoft

November 17, 2008: Jerry Yang Steps down as Yahoo! CEO

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 1117, affiliation, aggregator, antitrust issues, apple, carl icahn, carl sagan, ceo of yahoo, day in tech history, Google, historical events, investors, jerry yang, Microsoft, Podcast, share price, shareholders, steve ballmer, stock, technology history, veronica, Yahoo, yahoo ceo 0 Comments November 17, 2024

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2008 – After battle upon battle between Microsoft, Google and shareholders (including Carl Icahn), Jerry Yang finally announced to all he was stepping down as CEO of Yahoo! The previous days, Steve Ballmer said they are not going forward with any future purchase of Yahoo! Because of this, stock hit it’s lowest share price, $8. That, the failed Google affiliation (due to antitrust issues), and a very despondent group of investors, Jerry felt it best to step back in his roll.

USB 3.0 Specification is released
Apple vs. Carl Sagan
Veronica is released

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November 1, 1995: Intel Pentium Pro Announced

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 1101, bit architecture, bus speed, ceo, coin purse, ethics, fictional character, francois bancilhon, generation processor, hello kitty, historical podcast, ibm pcjr, intel, japanese bobtail, japanese bobtail cat, Linux, linux developer, micron process, Microsoft, next generation, nigerian government, nov 1, novell, november 1, pentium pro, sanrio company, shimizu, steve ballmer, tech history, technology podcast 0 Comments November 1, 2024

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Intel announced in 1995 the next generation processor – the Pentium Pro. Unlike the Pentium, the Pentium Pro was a chip designed for 32-bit architecture, so Windows 95 and Windows NT could run true. The processor ran between 150-200 MHz, with a bus speed of 60 MHz (for 150 or 180 MHz processor) or 66MHz (for 166 or 200 MHz processor). The processor used a .35 micron process and prices started at $974 to $1989.

2008 – Novell Open SUSE Community elected board
1996 – DEC sues AltaVista
IBM PCjr Released
1983 – The IBM PCjr is released

Day in Tech History/ Microsoft/ Yahoo

July 29, 2009: Yahoo Search Sold to Microsoft

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0729, aggregator, bold move, buyout bid, carol bartz, ceo, chief exec, day in tech history, dram, Google, historical events, japan, jerry yang, masahiro inoue, merger, Microsoft, Podcast, recent news, rtm, search advertisers, search engine technologies, sirius, snag, steve ballmer, technology history, Tim Morse, xm, Yahoo, yahoo jp 0 Comments July 29, 2024

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We dealt with the big buyout bid fight between Microsoft and Yahoo back in 2008. Of course, the outcome was that Yahoo’s CEO Jerry Yang stepped down and Carol Bartz took the reigns. However, Carol did make a bold move in 2009 as she agreed to a deal with Steve Ballmer. Microsoft would get Yahoo Search engine technologies and create a search engine for Yahoo. In return, Yahoo would handle advertising for premium search advertisers. This was a ten year deal.BTW – Recent news stated that Yahoo.jp is using Google in Japan. While it did put a snag in the agreement this week, Yahoo Japan Chief Exec. Masahiro Inoue said Microsoft didn’t localize the service in Japan, therefore, they went with Google.

WindowsNT 4.0 RTM is released
100-nanosecond 64 kbit DRAM
Sirius and XM finish their merger

Day in Tech History/ Microsoft

June 25, 1981: Microsoft Incorporates, Plans to Buy 86-DOS

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0625, 30 million, 86-DOS, aggregator, AOL, Bill Gates, day in tech history, flood, Geek, geocities, Google, IBM Personal Computer, michael Jackson, Microsoft, Online Communities, paul allen, Podcast, pop star, reminiscence, Seattle Computer Products, Social Networking, steve ballmer, stitcher, technology history, twitter, United States, wikipedia 0 Comments June 25, 2024

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Microsoft

1981 – Microsoft goes through a restructure to incorporate in Washington. Bill Gates would become president, Paul Allen was Executive Vice President. Steve Ballmer would come on full-time with a $50,000 year salary.

The reason why they incorporated? On this same day, Paul Allen sends a proposal to Rod Black of Seattle Computer Products for Microsoft to purchase all rights to 86-DOS for $30,000. At that point, they had only a non-exclusive license (since September 22, 1980). This was a strategic move because Microsoft had a relationship with IBM, and wanted to re-license for the IBM PC.

After a month of negotiations, Seattle Computer agreed to the purchase for $50,000. However, that was not the end of it, as they found out of the IBM deal. They finally settled years later for $1 million.