Technology Windows Central: Microsoft's 50th Anniversary

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

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https://www.windowscentral.com/tag/microsoft-50

Microsoft's 50th anniversary is a landmark worth celebrating for its longevity and impact on how we live, work, and play.

At Windows Central (going on our 18th year ourselves), we've chronicled the journey of this tech giant—a company that began with Bill Gates and Paul Allen's shared 1975 vision of putting a computer on every desk and in every home.

Over the years, Microsoft has given us unforgettable highs, such as the revolutionary Windows 95 launch that practically defined the PC era and milestones like the Xbox 360, which cemented its place in gaming history. We've covered the company's pursuit of innovation through hits like the Surface Pro line and missteps like the Windows Vista release, which struggled under high expectations.

There's a certain nostalgia in looking back at Microsoft's evolution. We miss the simpler days when Clippy popped up with unsolicited advice or when Zune tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to take on the iPod—a quirky reminder of the company's willingness to think outside the box. Our favorite moments include covering the bold move to unify Windows 10 across devices and the thrill of seeing CEO Satya Nadella pivot the company toward AI and cloud computing—a strategy that solidified Microsoft's relevance in modern tech.

And of course, Windows Phone (RIP)

Here's to the next fifty years, and we hope you enjoy our lookback articles covering this event by our staff!

Microsoft's 50th Anniversary | Windows Central

The latest Microsoft 50 breaking news, comment, reviews and features from the experts at Windows Central

www.windowscentral.com

 

[Victor M]

And the famous bad things it has done:

Tried to kill off Netscape by making Internet Explorer free and built-in.
Tried to kill off Java - an open, platform agnostic programming language, by making a proprietary version of Java with non-compatible MS-only functions.
Make life hell for Linux users who share USB sticks with Linux by saying the stick has 'problems' if it detects that files are written to the stick using Linux. Enabling bitlocker to encrypt USB sticks if MS Security Baseline is installed so that Linux cannot use them.

 

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

The Microsoft of Today is Not the Microsoft of the Past

Microsoft is celebrating its 50th anniversary this week, but few seem to understand that its biggest accomplishments aren’t about technology.

Yes, Bill Gates and Paul Allen started the personal computer industry by creating a BASIC for microcomputers. Yes, Microsoft popularized the graphical user interface (GUI) with Windows, and then embraced and extended the Internet, bringing it into everyone’s homes. And yes, Microsoft has often been on the leading edge of adopting new technologies from CD-ROM to connected TVs to web services. It had an incredible run with Windows and Office in the past, and and the modern Microsoft has created formidable cloud computing and now AI businesses.

A critic might point to the failures, also-rans, and me-too products that dog Microsoft’s history, too. MS-DOS wasn’t the first operating system for microcomputers, that was CP/M. Windows wasn’t the first GUI for personal computers, that came from Apple with the Mac. Microsoft didn’t invent pen computing, web browsers, pocket-sized computing devices, MP3 players, Internet search engines, tablet computers, email apps, office productivity suites, e-commerce, smartphones, online communications services, social networking, personal digital assistants, cloud computing, AI, or most of the programming languages its used or sold over time. And so much else.

These and more are fair game for any conversation or debate about Microsoft. But what the company should be celebrating–or brooding over–isn’t the past, and it’s certainly not any particular technology or product. Likewise, while we on the outside shouldn’t “celebrate” a company that has taken so much from so many in its history, it’s fair to acknowledge the impact it’s had, not just on this industry, but on us all, as individuals. Microsoft is a fact of life, an ever-present behemoth that is more successful today than it’s ever been, even though it was at one time far more powerful.

I’m not dead yet!​

What Microsoft should celebrate, what we on the outside should at least acknowledge, is tied to everything I wrote above: It’s still here, it’s still relevant, and it’s still influential.

This is highly unusual. Apple, which will celebrate its own 50th anniversary next year, is the only other company in our industry for which we can make a similar claim. But Microsoft is a company that should have been greatly diminished when its core products no longer mattered as the market changed, and it should have then begun a long, slow, and inevitable decline. This is what happened to most of the giants in our industry, from IBM to Novell to WordPerfect to Lotus to Netscape to Sun Microsystems to Yahoo to so many others.

It’s happening right now to Intel.

And that is a particularly interesting comparison because Microsoft and Intel rose to fame and fortune on each other’s coattails, starting with the dawn on the PC industry and accelerating through the PC clone business, the rise of MS-DOS and then Windows, the necessity of the PC for the Internet, and into the modern era. But where Microsoft and Intel diverged–and where Microsoft and Apple aligned–was in understanding that there would be, and then was, a post-PC era. And that this era would be defined by online services that required giant datacenters and by mobile devices. And that both of these new markets would require efficient new software and efficient new silicon. Microsoft rose to that challenge. And Intel did not.

The Microsoft of Today is Not the Microsoft of the Past

Microsoft celebrates its 50th anniversary this week, but few understand that its biggest accomplishments aren't about technology.

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