25 Facts About Microsoft; Microsoft is now one of the most valuable companies in the world. Usually, the position of this company and Apple to become the most valuable company in the world is constantly changing. Founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, the company has launched many successful products nearly 40 years later and revolutionized the world of personal computers.
Microsoft now has some very popular products. Windows 10 is currently the most popular PC operating system worldwide. The company’s Xbox division is also often recognized as one of the mainstays of the video game world in the near future.
25 Facts About Microsoft
Office products are also one of the most essential applications of millions of people in our world today. It is probably not necessary to mention the Surface series of products either, as some of the top laptops in the world today belong to the same collection. In addition to the company’s many popular products, its impact on the technology world is another reason for its fame. However, here are 25 notable facts you may not be aware of. So stay with us.
Where does Microsoft’s name come from?
The name of this company was chosen by one of its founders. Bill Gates wrote a letter to Paul Allen several decades ago in 1975, before the company was founded. This letter was the first time that Microsoft’s name was mentioned.
In that letter, Bill Gates used the word Micro-Soft; Because it was a combination of two different words, Microcomputer and Software. Later, when the company was officially registered in 1976, the dash between the words was removed to officially change the company name to Microsoft.
It is not the first Microsoft operating system MS-DOS
While many people think that Microsoft’s first operating system was MS-DOS, in fact, before developing this operating system, Microsoft had developed another operating system.
That operating system was known as XENIX. The operating system is actually a personalized version of UNIX developed by Bell Labs for AT&T in the early 1970s. With permission from AT&T, Microsoft developed the XENIX version and then made it available to hardware manufacturers such as Intel and SCO.
Office software was first released on the Mac
Office software, along with Windows, is one of the most popular products in the history of Microsoft. Although this suite is known alongside Windows, in fact Office suite applications were first released on the Mac OS.
The reason behind this decision seems quite logical. Earlier in 1989, when the first Office products were introduced, Macintosh computers were more popular than PCs running Windows, and the initial release of these products seemed to work better for Macintosh. A year after the release of the first version of Office, the collection became available for Windows.
Folders that are never created
Windows is an operating system that Microsoft has used many tricks to build. One of them is the fact that you can not create a folder called con in Windows; Unbelievable? Try it now to see one of the strangest facts in the history of Windows up close.
Bill Gates, the youngest billionaire of his time
Microsoft has proven to be a huge asset to its founders. Bill Gates made $ 1 billion in 1987 before he was 32 years old. This made him the richest young man in the world at the time.
Microsoft is the maker of the first tablet
While Apple is known for producing and launching iPad tablets in 2010, it is not the manufacturer of the first generation of tablets. In fact, these tablets were first invented by Microsoft. Long before Apple in 2001, Bill Gates introduced a prototype Windows XP-based tablet PC, but the market was not ready to accept it.
This product was extremely thick, heavy and so heavy that no one considered it a portable device. Even though many hardware manufacturers launched such tablets, the product ultimately failed miserably. In other words, before 2010, tablets could never be as impressive and popular as expected.
Manufacturer of the first smartwatch
Microsoft is one of the most influential companies in history in many ways, but some of its products were released very soon. In other words, the company has always moved ahead of its time and the market has not been ready to accept its products.
In addition to the tablet, Microsoft introduced the world’s first smartwatch in 1994. This smartwatch was produced in collaboration with Timex and is known as Timex DataLink 150.
The watch used a small LCD display that could be connected to a Windows-based PC to receive data such as appointments. It may not seem believable, but this watch was also resistant to water penetration to a depth of 100 meters. However, like the fate of tablets, this Microsoft product did not achieve widespread success and only a few units were sold.
Redmond is not the birthplace of this company
While everyone knows Microsoft as Redmond Washington, it is not really the place where the company was originally founded. Microsoft was officially founded on April 4, 1975 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Later in 1985, the company moved its headquarters to Redmond.
Strange design of the original Xbox
The original Xbox is known as one of the greatest successes in the history of Microsoft as a video game console. This console is still compared to Sony’s PlayStation 2 and is cited as one of the factors that led Sega to exit the console industry.
The design of this console was beautiful and the hardware was powerful, but the original design looks strange and irrational. The original design of the Microsoft console was a massive X-shaped object. Fortunately, Microsoft decided to reconsider and choose the design we now know for mass production.
Microsoft rescued Apple in 1997
Apple was struggling to return in the late 1920s. The company fired Steve Jobs a long time ago in the 1980s, and without proper planning and strategy, was chanting new products one after another. The high cost of supplying unsuitable and unplanned products pushed the company to the brink of bankruptcy in 1997.
Eventually Microsoft, or in other words Bill Gates, entered. In those years, he signed a contract with Steve Jobs, who had just returned to Apple. Microsoft invested $ 150 million in Apple, and in return, Apple withdrew the lawsuit it had previously settled. However, the main reason for Microsoft’s investment in Apple was real competition.
In those years, Microsoft was under pressure from the US government due to its monopoly presence in various markets. So Apple’s revival helped Microsoft gain a worthy competitor and ultimately solve such problems. The creation of this competitor prevented Microsoft from splitting into several different parts.
Microsoft was not Bill Gates’ first company
Microsoft was not the first company founded by Bill Gates and Allen Pyle. The two co-founded Traf-O-Data before founding the world’s largest technology company. The company was founded while they were both still in high school. The company was engaged in the construction of simple computers for counting and processing traffic data.
Countless patents that never became a product
Microsoft has acquired nearly 200 different companies in its history and now owns tens of thousands of different patents. In fact, many of these acquisitions have been for the purpose of obtaining existing patents to file newer cases.
Microsoft did not have a website until 1993
This may seem strange because the Internet in the 1990s was known as Internet Explorer, which is owned by Microsoft, but in any case the company did not have an official website until 1993.
The first virus in the history of Windows
Windows was virus-free for almost a decade, until someone finally decided to change that. The first virus of the Windows operating system was known as WinVer 1.4, which was released in 1992.
Microsoft is not a software vendor
When you buy a Windows 10 (original) disc, you do not actually own the software on the disc. You only get a license to use that software, and Microsoft may waive any time it may provide and continue to do so.
As a result, Microsoft has never sold and will never sell software. The billion-dollar company has so far only been active in selling various software licenses. More precisely, you can get a license specifically for Windows or Office, but you will never own the software.
Learn all about Office Word
As we said, Microsoft is very interested in Easter Eggs and various secrets. An interesting Easter Egg in Office Word allows you to get a great description of this software. Just enter the phrase “= rand (200.99”) into the software environment and press the “Enter” button; Boom! Enjoy your long text!
Microsoft’s first product was a mouse
Today, Microsoft is known for its hardware and quality products. The Surface section is the best option for those looking to buy the best portable Windows-powered products, and the Xbox Series X is the most powerful console to date as of this writing, offering 4K output resolution and 120 frames per second. .
However, Microsoft did not have much experience with hardware before building the first Xbox, producing only mice and keyboards. Thus, it is not surprising to say that the company’s first product was a mouse, which was produced under the name “Microsoft Mouse”. These mice came with Office and Notepad software and were used when PCs were based on text operating systems and did not require a mouse to control.
Excel, the first popular Microsoft software
Microsoft had a lot of success with operating systems, but before 1985, it did not have much impact with software. That same year, the first version of Excel was introduced for the Mac, and it quickly became a success.
This Microsoft software was so popular that it obsolete Lotus 1, 2, 3, as well as Apple VisiCalc, which were previously used as an alternative to Excel. The continued success of Excel in the early 1990s made Microsoft one of the leading software developers. The launch of the first Microsoft Office Suite in 1989 propelled the company into a strong flood of software developers.
Xbox stands for DirectX Box
Only a handful of users know that the word Xbox stands for DirectX Box. DirectX is a Microsoft-built API developed for applications that use 3D processing. Video games form the main spectrum of such programs. So every Xbox uses DirectX to run video games.
So with the introduction of the new generation Xbox X series console, this issue is closer to its truth and acronym than ever before. This console is based on the x86 architecture and runs a personalized version of Windows 10. Didn’t it remind you of anything? This console looks like a smaller gaming PC that plays video games.
The first version of Windows was released in 1985
Windows 1 The first operating system with a graphical user interface was introduced in 1985 by Microsoft. The operating system received a lot of negative reviews at the time of its release due to its powerful system requirements. However, many critics ignored those reviews because of the use of the mouse.
At that time, most existing operating systems were text-based, and operating systems with a graphical user interface were considered a new but ephemeral fashion; The same was true of the other graphical user interface operating system of the time, the Macintosh. But let’s look at it a few decades later; Were they fleeting? It does not look like this now that we are writing this article!
Bill Gates had a weird name for Windows
While Bill Gates is a true genius in software development and coding, his marketing skills do not seem to be very strong. When the first version of Windows was under development, Bill Gates chose the name of this operating system “Interface Manager”, and interestingly, it was used as an official name for some time.
It was here that the marketing department heard the name and strongly insisted that “Windows” would be a much better name for Microsoft’s new operating system. Gates eventually embraced the idea, and decades later we still love Windows.
Many users still use Windows XP
Windows XP is undoubtedly the most successful operating system produced by Microsoft and probably the most popular product offered by this company; Of course, it should be noted that Windows is getting closer to gaining this position day by day. The operating system was the undisputed king of the PC market for nearly a decade before the release of Windows 10.
Even today, a small number of users around the world use this Windows on their personal computers, or at least it can be said that a number of countries have higher statistics in this regard. In Armenia, however, the situation is different, with about 42% of PCs still running Windows XP, with much higher rates.
Microsoft’s first major product: PC-DOS
While Microsoft produced products before the 1980s, the company’s first major product was produced in 1980 in collaboration with IBM. IBM was a big name in the hardware industry at the time, and it contacted Microsoft to develop an operating system for one of the company’s home computers.
This operating system was known as PC DOS and, as you might have guessed, was a text-based operating system. The partnership was worth $ 50,000 at the time, which is now close to $ 165,000, including inflation.
$ 1,000 capital or $ 1.6 million profit?
If someone had invested $ 1,000 in the company at the time of the initial public offering of Microsoft shares, he would now have $ 1.6 million worth of stock. This shows how much the company has grown and grown over the last 30 years (since the listing).
Misconceptions about Windows 10
With the release of Windows 10, a new era in the history of Microsoft was marked. This period coincides with software as a service that has become a trend around the world. So before and after the introduction of Windows 11, it was thought that Windows 10 would be the latest version of Microsoft operating systems.
