Microsoft’s History Microsoft Corporation was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and his partner Paul Allen. Originally, the two sold BASIC, which was the first PC computer language program MITS Computer. MITS Computer was Microsoft’s first customer ever. In the fall of 1973, both Gates and Allen realized that the home PC business was about to take off and someone would need to provide necessary software for the machines. Paul Allen witnessed the first microcomputer on the cover of a magazine and got inspired. When he brought it to Bill Gates attention the dynamic duo felt the time was right. Gates arranged for a meeting with the Altair manufacturers to inform them that he had a new program that he has been working on. The appointment was made, Gates and Allen wrote the program, and when they presented it the next day at the meeting everyone was impressed. They sold the program and within a year, Bill Gates had decided to drop out of Harvard and formed Microsoft. The start up years for the corporation turned out rough but they eventually were able to license MS-DOS to IBM. Right out of the gates, the IBM PC took the public by storm and its break out lead to the success of Microsoft. In 1986, the company went public, and thirty-one year old Bill Gates became a billionaire as Microsoft continued writing software for businesses and the consumer market. The first version of Microsoft Windowswas introduced by the next year and a million copies per month were being sold by 1993. Bill Gates knew the Internet was the next era of technology at the time. He figured that would be the major focus so in 1995, Microsoft changed dramatically to cater to the development of the popular Internet Explorer browser. Microsoft’s Industry