During the next few years, they refined BASIC and developed other programming languages. Gates moved Microsoft to Seattle in 1979 and began developing software that let other write programs, thus the modern personal computer was born in 1980 when IBM choose Microsoft to write the operating system for its new machines.
In 1980, IBM approaches them to make a BASIC interpreter for the upcoming IBM-PC. In August 1980 Microsoft releases the Microsoft®SoftCard® system, a software/hardware enhancement product that adds the CP/M® operating system to the Apple® II. In 1989 they release Microsoft Office.
MS-DOS was released with the IBM PC in 1981. Thereafter, most manufacturers of personal computers licensed MS-DOS as their operating system, generating vast revenues for Microsoft; by the early 1990s it had sold more than 100 million copies of the program and defeated rival operating systems such as CP/M, which it displaced in the early 1980s, and later IBM OS/2.
The company went public in 1986, and Gates became the industry’s first billionaire a year later. In 1995, Microsoft released Windows 95. More than a 40 million copies were sold in the first year after its release.
Microsoft before 1990 was predominantly a supplier to the hardware manufacturers. That was their target market. As technology advanced and personal computers become so popular, the bulk of Microsoft’s revenue was generated from sales to consumers.
Microsoft Corporation
