Technology
Microsoft’s Milestones
This year, Microsoft celebrates its 47th anniversary. Here’s a glance at some of the company’s biggest achievements in that time.
LEADERBOARD
1995 Microsoft’s Windows 95 program unveiled now-iconic features including the desktop, the recycle bin, the start button, and the taskbar. It also added a new “plug and play” feature for installing hardware.
1997 Microsoft purchased Hotmail, one of the world’s first webmail services, in 1997, replacing it with Outlook.com six years later.
1975 Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft— originally spelt “Micro-soft”—to produce software for the MITS Altair 8800 minicomputer. Five years later, in 1980, the pair inked a deal with IBM to provide an operating system for its first PC. IBM introduced its PC with Microsoft’s 16-bit operating system, MS-DOS 1.0, in 1981. 1986 In 1985, Gates rolled out the Microsoft Windows interface for its MS-DOS operating system. The following year, on March 13, 1986, Microsoft went public. Its initial IPO had a $21 offering price, which rose to $35.5 before the end of the day. On the first day of trading, 2.5 million shares changed hands, raising $61 million.
2011 The tech firm bought Skype for $8.5 billion in 2011, expanding its focus on real-time video and voice communications. 2013 Having first launched the Xbox 360 in 2001, the software giant launched the Xbox One in 2013, which was the third home gaming console in the Xbox family. The device, which integrated with television, included a motion-sensing camera and microphone, played DVDs, and CDs, and allowed for making and sharing videos.
F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M
APRIL 2022
BY JULIAN NABIL; IMAGES FROM MICROSOFT BLOG, IMAGE FROM WIKIMEDIA.ORG, IMAGE FROM SKYPE.COM
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