20 Most Interesting facts about Microsoft Corporation and Bill Gates

Microsoft Corporation is world’s no.1 software company and also the richest and biggest among all it’s competitors. Microsoft develops,manufactures and sells computer software, personal computers and other electronic gadgets.(List is pretty huge that’s not possible to list them all in this post)

The greatest organizations have greatest stories and experiences to share with people and also they have very interesting facts that i will be sharing with you below :

1.What’s the meaning of Microsoft ?

Bill Gates suggested the company’s name to be Micro-Soft, which was combination of “Microcomputer” and “Software”. It looked a little bit weired with hyphen so after sometime it was removed and finally “Microsoft” was officially registered as a company in 1976. Bill Gates and Paul Allen who was the cofounder of Microsoft got their first project from MITS in 1976.

2.Which was the first Office Application made by Microsoft ?

Microsoft Excel was the first office application made by Microsoft in 1982, earlier Excel was  named Multiplan. Microsoft changed the name to Excel when it was released for Machintosh in 1985.

3.The first version of Microsoft Excel was not made for Microsoft DOS but for
Apple Machintosh

Yes, it’s strange but it’s true. When Microsoft released Windows in 1987 until then Excel was already upgraded to version 2.0.

4. Microsoft asks very Strange Questions in their Interview

Yes, getting into this company can be very challenging as you not only have to clear their tricky technical questions but also some weird questions that tests your imagination and creativity . One of the mostly asked questions in their interview is:

“Why is manhole cover round?”(I think because it’s easy to build, you can use your imagination to get better answer to this question). They may also tell you to “design an application for communicating with people on Mars”, this sounds very weird but again your imaginative and creative power are tested through these question. So if you are ready to go to their interview be prepared with these types of questions(Best of Luck in advance 🙂 ).

5. How many Patents Microsoft holds ?

It’s 10,000 , i hope you know what are patents, if not then, they are rights to Copyright your Item or Technique that you have found so that noone else can copy it without your permission). They are filing around 3,000 patents every year making it one of the top five patent owners of the U.S.

6. PowerPoint’s original name was Presenter

Powerpoint was originally developed by Forethrought, Inc but later bought by Microsoft for $14 million in 1987. Due some trademark issues over the name Presenter it was change to PowerPoint.(Which name you like more Presenter or PowerPoint, i think PowerPoint is pretty cool ).

7.When did first Microsoft Office package released ?

It was in October 1990, when Microsoft released it’s first Office Package that contained Word 1.1, Excel 2.0 and PowerPoint 2.0.

8. Microsoft Access was never released for Apple Computers i.e Machintosh

However, we don’t know the reason behind it but probably they might had much better application than Access already or due to arguments between Apple and Microsoft. But who cares ,”fact is fact and remains fact”.

9. When Bill Gates sold his first Computer Program ?

 

It was when Gates was 17 years old that was a Time-Tabling system for his high school for $4,200.

10. Gates was banned from Computer usage in his High School

Gates was banned from Computer usage in his High School by Computer Center Corporation after they were caught hacking the Operating System to increase Computer usage time.

11. Gates was selected for Harvard University after scoring 1590 in his SAT score

SAT(Scholastic Aptitude Test) is a test for getting admission into top educational institutes in world, and Gates cleared it with flying colors scoring 1590 while the top score at that time was 1600. That means that Gates had an IQ score of 170 , it’s quite above from average ).

12.Gates was a College Dropout ?

Inspite of getting enrolled in Harvard University(one of the world’s best education institute), he dropout from it to start his company. Gates along with Paul Allen his high school friend worked on earlier version of programming language BASIC for first microcomputer – MITS Altair. After two years in 1975 , he decide to dropout of college and start Microsoft.

However, in 2007 GATES got a degree from Harvard, when university conferred him with an Honorary Degree.

13. Gates told his university teacher to become millionaire by the age of 30 but he became billionaire by the age of 31

In 1992, Forbes declared Gates to be the richest man in America with worth of $6.3 Billion. In 1995, Gates became World’s Richest Man and continued to hold this position for 13 years.

14. Gates was arrested in 1997 for jumping the RED light and also driving without licence in New Mexico.

15.  The “centibillionaire” was coined when Microsoft’s net worth went past $100 billion.

16.  Bill Gates made wrong Predictions

In 1981 Gates said that nobody would ever need more than 640KiloBytes of memory on Personal Computers, now you know how wrong he predicted we are not satisfied with 1TB(1000 GB) also today.

Microsoft said that “They will never make a 32 bit operating system”, but after sometime in around 1992 then launched their first 32 bit Windows NT. Windows NT

Gates said in 2004 that in two years “problem of e-mail spam will be over”, but till now also it’s not resolved.

17. Gates left as CEO of Microsoft on June 27,2008 to do full-time role in Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as a philanthropist (Harkate kutch bhi thi Gates ki par Dil to bahut saaf hai uska ,khyo dosto ?).

18. Gates was married to Milanda French on New Year’s Day in Hawaii on January 1st, 1994.

19. Microsoft has a Huge Art Collection

 

Microsoft has collected real artworks such as painting, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, ceramics, studio glass and multimedia works.It shows Microsoft loves Art work very much.

20. Who composed “The Microsoft sound”

Pioneering musician Brian Eno composed startup tune of Windows 95, which was dubbed as “The Microsoft Sound”. He composed very short music which is pretty amazing and funny as said Brian Eno.

That would be it in this post, Hope you liked it 🙂