A partnership formed between Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975, grows into a behemoth multi-national corporation.

Congratulations, It’s A Bouncing Baby Multi-National Corporation

On April 4, 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded a partnership called Micro-Soft.  Their goal was to create a programming language for the MITS Altair, the first “PC” built by hobbyists.  The language became BASIC, and started Micro-Soft on their path to industry domination. 

They finished 1975 with revenues of $16,005 and 3 employees.  Bill Gates took the company public on March 14, 1986.  And as of the end of their last fiscal year (June 30, 2008), Microsoft had revenues of $60 BILLION and over 91,000 employees – a far cry from their humble 1975 beginnings.  A $10,000 investment in Microsoft at their IPO in 1986 would be worth over $2.5 Million today (not including dividends).

Here’s the motley crew that built the foundation for this blue chip company, circa December 1978 (Gates, bottom-left, and Allen, bottom-right):

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It’s hard to imagine a company that has had more of an impact on business and technology over the last generation than Microsoft.  Whether you’re pro-Microsoft or not, you can’t deny their integral role in bringing computing to the masses over the past few decades.

Microsoft Logo Changes

I thought it would be neat to take a look at how Microsoft’s logo has changed over the years.  I was surprised to see only a three versions.  Since adopting their current logo in 1987, it has pretty much stayed the same (except for the varying accompanying taglines).

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