A Brief History of Microsoft Products

Microsoft was founded in the mid-70s and released their first major operating system, MS-DOS, in the early 1980s. Since then, their history reflects the changing needs of both customers and IT professionals in many key areas. These include OSs, desktop applications and server programs. What follows is a brief history of some of Microsoft’s products with a focus on how they have evolved to meet the changing needs of everyday customers and IT professionals.

Windows

Microsoft’s popular operating system developed out of a need for a more user-friendly way to manipulate MS-DOS. Subsequent versions improved usability, memory management and multitasking. The need for more stability and power led to the development of Windows NT, based on the NTFS file system and supporting 32-bit processors. Shortly after, Microsoft developed Windows 95 for desktop users. While still based on the FAT file system, the Windows 9x family did run on a 32-bit processor. Windows 96 was Microsoft’s best-selling product to date.

Later, Microsoft combined their OS platforms with Windows XP. XP was NTFS-based and responded to the needs of professionals by being far more stable than its predecessors. It sold 400 million copies and contributed to a boom in Microsoft training. The desktop and server OS platforms continued to evolve to meet the power, networking and reliability needs both on the desktop and in the server room with the releases of Windows 7 and server products Windows 2003 and 2008. On the cusp of Windows 8, Microsoft looks to make major changes again in their continuing effort to meet user demand.

Office

Office is Microsoft’s most widely-used desktop operating system. Released in 1990, Office 1.0 featured only rudimentary versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. As later editions developed, Office met the need for a desktop email client with Outlook and database support with Access. Later versions of Office include a la carte additional software such as Visio and Publisher, designed to meet individual users’ needs. Today, Office has evolved into the the centerpiece of Microsoft’s larger enterprise-level collaboration strategy, built around SharePoint.

SharePoint

Starting as a simple web development tool, SharePoint has grown into a major all-in-one solution for IT professionals. SharePoint started life as Microsoft Site Server, a collection of tools designed to assist in site building and collaboration. Subsequent releases have added features like a full dashboard, PowerShell support and web parts, all based on user feedback. Today, collaboration is the main focus of SharePoint. Administrators with Microsoft training can implement a SharePoint solution for document management and collaboration with total Office integration. SharePoint is still used to develop sites, but it, like Windows, Office and many other Microsoft products, has evolved into something far greater based on the demand of IT professionals.