Microsoft - 18 Little-known Facts And Curious Details

2023 Author: Gordon Kinson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-26 08:36

Previously open and arrogant, today it is more in the shadows, but the presence of Bill Gates' legacy (biography) is observed everywhere, including outside the IT sphere. Microsoft left a mark on history, and what a mark - it turns out that not everything depends on Windows, big money and power over the IT-sphere.

The company entered the stock markets, the IPO procedure, took place exactly 30 years ago - on March 13, 1986. If you then spent $ 21 on buying a single share and kept your cool all this time, you could get $ 14,990 for it (you should take into account the multiple split (split) of shares). And this is a profitability of 71,283%.

Mark Zuckerbreg had just learned to do without diapers when Gates became the world's youngest billionaire at the age of 31. True, it will take another 8 years before he accumulates $ 12.9 billion and will be awarded the title of the world's first rich man.

ON THE TOPIC: Bill Gates kept one hand in his pocket while shaking hands with the President of South Korea (video).

Microsoft's explosive growth has significantly enriched an estimated 12,000 people directly from its employees - all of them almost out of the blue became dollar millionaires and even more. In addition to Gates himself, there are at least two billionaires who come from the company. For example, the merry fellow Ballmer, who can afford to buy a sports club with all the contents for a billion or two.

Xanadu 2.0 is the name of a property with an area of over 6,000 sq. M. m in Medina, Washington, which Gates acquired for personal purposes in 1988. Since then, the estate's price has risen more than 60 times, to $ 123 million.

ON TOPIC: 30 years of Windows - milestones in the history of the most famous OS in the world.

Without involving designers, without any outside help at all, two programmer friends Bill and Paul in just a day came up with and drew a logo for the newly minted Microsoft. The first of the letters "O" received a personal exterior and the nickname "blibbet".

The Windows 95 Launch Soundtrack is composed by renowned musician and producer Brian Eno. By that time, Microsoft had really stopped counting money and was not stingy on the services of professionals in all areas of activity.

The 95th windows had a personal musical composition, a kind of official anthem for this version. It was written and performed by musicians from The Rolling Stones, the song itself is called "Start Me Up".

And here is the original clip itself (the song was released in 1981):

Buyers of the deluxe, boxed version of the OS on CD could find in addition to "Windows" a video clip file for Buddy Holly by the Weezer group.

Microsoft Excel is the company's first program to be awarded the title of "software killer." Its distribution around the world at once put an end to the Apple VisiCalc and Lotus 1-2-3, so well-known in their time. Office spreadsheets are now actually symbols of the business world.

Microsoft's old-timers have a tradition of celebrating anniversaries in the workplace with M & Ms. You should bring a minimum of one pound (400 grams) for each year of service and treat everyone. Yes, there is no shortage of overweight people in Redmond offices.

If Steve Jobs liked to quarrel different teams of his subordinates, to play "pirates", then Gates and his colleague Ballmer preferred humor.

At the beginning of this century, they recorded a fair amount of motivational parody videos, transforming into different characters.

Microsoft was once a cross between a strategic partner and an exploited employee for Apple for many years. And then the sly Bill gained strength and threw off the yoke, terribly quarreling with Jobs, who did not expect such a demarche.

RELATED TO: 30 years of sympathy and enmity between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in facts and photos.

The IT giant released its first "smart watch" back in 1994. Together with Timex, the Datalink 150 was designed - perhaps one of the first devices in the world, when sophisticated digital technologies were embodied in the format of an ordinary wristwatch, rather than an outlandish accessory.

In 1997, Microsoft invested $ 150 million in Apple - officially in order to save it from imminent bankruptcy. Gates generously offered a shoulder to a colleague in trouble, as Jobs announced publicly from the stage. What in reality was hidden behind this financial infusion is a subject of discussion to this day.

RELATED TO: Bill Gates tasted water recycled from urine (video).

The term "tablet" was coined and coined by Microsoft engineers. In addition to the concept of tablet computers, they developed a real-time automatic language translation system, Internet-connected household devices and many other now popular gadgets. Alas, most of them either did not enter the markets at all, or failed due to the narrow-minded marketing policy of the company bosses. And the laurels of the pioneers went to others.

By the way, the number of technologies officially registered for Microsoft is 48313.

The name of the Xbox game console is a simplified version of the "DirectX Box" combination, which literally translates as "DirectX box". Simply put, a device for intensive work with rich game graphics.

Windows Bob, a special version of Win 95, was released that same year. Housewives were in no hurry to gnaw the granite of computer science, and in someone's too bright mind the idea came to make the OS interface in the form of the interior of human housing. Say, in a familiar environment, users will be more comfortable. Those worries were not appreciated and the discouraging OS Bob was promptly eliminated.

The most in-demand drinks in cafeterias for Microsoft employees are orange juice and milk. As stated in 2010, the consumption is more than 23 million glasses per year.

See also:

• What the first logos of Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and other IT companies looked like.
• 30 years of sympathy and enmity between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in facts and photos.
• Photo of Jobs, Wozniak, Cook, Gates, Schmidt, Ballmer in his youth.