March 4, 2010
Today is the end of my work week. Well, not technically, but I’m on an offsite training course for advanced Microsoft PowerPoint, which makes it feel like I’m not actually working. The course is quite interesting and I’m learning about all kinds of features that I never knew that existed – did you know that you can recolour clip art? I didn’t! Today’s question is: what year was Microsoft started?
A: Microsoft began in 1975, when it was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen.
In January 1975 The MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems) Altair 8800 microcomputer appeared on the cover of Popular Electronics. The article inspired Paul Allen and Bill Gates to develop a BASIC language for the Altair. By February, the two completed Altair BASIC and sold it to MITS, making it the first computer language program for a personal computer.
The name Microsoft (a portmanteau word of microcomputer and software), hyphenated in its early incarnations, was first used in a letter from Gates to Allen on November 29, 1975, and the company was registered on November 26, 1976.
Sources:
The History of Microsoft
Wikipedia: History of Microsoft
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