Happy Birthday: Microsoft turns 34

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It’s been 34 years since Bill Gates and Paul Allen put their heads together to come up with what was then called “Micro-Soft”. The name was a combination of “micro computing” and “software” but has come to stand for modern computing – as well a, to some at least, anti-competitiveness, less-than-perfect code and other less flattering ideas.

The company eventually dropped the hypen and moved from its orignal offices in Albuquerque, New Mexico to Bellevue, Washington in 1979. It moved again in 1986 to its current campus in Redmond, which is home to some 30,000 employees.

Current chief executive Steve Ballmer – who took over the post after Gates stepped down last year – joined the firm in 1980. Microsoft was incorporated in 1981 and went public five years later. Allen started to step away from the firm in the 1980s after being diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, and finally left in 2000.

Those are the humble beginnings of a not-so-humble firm. Let’s face it, you know the rest of the story; how Microsoft found its way onto IBM’s computers, how it was slow to get the internet but eventually took it over, and how the charges of anti-competition just keep coming.

But for all haters, it’s impossible to deny the affect Microsoft has had on the IT world. There aren’t many software areas where the Redmond giant doesn’t dominate, though it remains to be seen what will happen in the years to come.

Click here to see photos of Bill Gate's time at Microsoft.

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