Microsoft Windows And Things Behind It

Microsoft.What is Microsoft? Microsoft Corporation is a multinational computer technology corporation that develops,manufactures,licenses,and supports a wide range of software products for computing such as Microsoft Office.The Microsoft Headquarters is in Redmond,Washington USA,Its most profitable products are the Microsoft Office Suite of productivity software.



Microsoft staff photo from December 7, 1978
From left to right :
Top :Steve Wood,Bob Wallace,Jim lane.
Middle : Bob O'Rear ,Bob Greenberg,Marc McDonald,Gordon Letwin.
Bottom : Bill Gates , Andrea Lewis ,Marla Wood ,Paul Allen.

Important Date Of Microsoft

Important Dates
Date	Event
1975	Microsoft founded
Jan. 1, 1979	Microsoft moves from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Bellevue, Washington
June 25, 1981	Microsoft incorporates
Aug. 12, 1981	IBM introduces its personal computer with Microsoft's 16-bit operating system, MS-DOS 1.0
Feb. 26, 1986	Microsoft moves to corporate campus in Redmond, Washington
March 13, 1986	Microsoft stock goes public
Aug. 1, 1989	Microsoft introduces earliest version of Office suite of productivity applications
May 22, 1990	Microsoft launches Windows 3.0
Aug. 24, 1995	Microsoft launches Windows 95
Dec. 7, 1995	Bill Gates outlines Microsoft's commitment to supporting and enhancing the Internet
June 25, 1998	Microsoft launches Windows 98
Jan. 13, 2000	Steve Ballmer named president and chief executive officer for Microsoft
Feb. 17, 2000	Microsoft launches Windows 2000
June 22, 2000	Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer outline Microsoft's .NET strategy for Web services
May 31, 2001	Microsoft launches Office XP
Oct. 25, 2001	Microsoft launches Windows XP
Jan. 15, 2002	Bill Gates outlines Microsoft's commitment to Trustworthy Computing
Nov. 7, 2002	Microsoft and partners launch Tablet PC
Jan. 16, 2003	Microsoft declares annual dividend
April 24, 2003	Microsoft launches Windows Server 2003
Oct. 21, 2003	Microsoft launches Microsoft Office System
July 20, 2004	Microsoft announces plans to return up to $75 billion to shareholders in dividends and stock buybacks
June 15, 2006	Microsoft announces that Bill Gates will transition out of a day-to-day role in the company in July 2008, Ray Ozzie is named chief software architect and Craig Mundie chief research and strategy officer
July 20, 2006	Microsoft announces a new $20 billion tender offer and authorizes an additional share-repurchase program of up to $20 billion over five years
Jan. 30, 2007	Microsoft launches Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office System to consumers worldwide
Feb. 27, 2008	Microsoft launches Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008
June 27, 2008	Bill Gates transitions from his day-to-day role at Microsoft to spend more time on his work at The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Oct. 22, 2009	Microsoft launches Windows 7

Microsoft Facts and Trivia!!!

• The name Microsoft was first used in a letter from Gates to Allen on November 29,1975.
• Microsoft, without a hyphen, became a registered trademark on November 26,1976.
• In the early 1980s, in cooperation with a large number of companies, Microsoft created a home computer system named MSX. It became fairly popular in Japan and Europe, but the IBM PC became increasingly dominant through the late 1980s and the early 1990s, bringing an end to the MSX and many other systems like it.
• Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit is the largest developer of Macintosh software outside of Apple itself.
• Microsoft Bob, a Windows 3.1 program manager replacement released by Microsoft in March 1995, is what many consider Microsoft's most unsuccessful product, becoming the source of many jokes as a result of its unpopularity.
• The Microsoft Puzzle Hunt is an annual puzzle hunt (a live puzzle game where teams compete to solve a series of puzzles) held at the Redmond campus. It is a spinoff MIT Mystery Hunt of the.
• Microsoft's first operating system was Xenix, released in 1980 and later sold to Santa Cruz Operation.

(Reference : http://www.microsoft.com)