Microsoft Corporation

TABLE OF CONTENTS

MICROSOFT HISTORY 1 EARLY INFLUENCES 2 FIRST BUSINESS VENTURE 3 EDUCATION ATTEMPT 3 THE MOTIVATIONAL SIDE OF FEAR 4 A JAPANESE CONNECTION 5 IBM INFLUENCE 5 SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 6 A CRUCIAL DEAL 6 COMPETITION ERRORS 7 BIRTH OF WINDOWS 7 MISSION STATEMENT AND ANALYSIS 8 INDUSTRY AND COMPETITVE ANALYSIS 9 DOMINANT ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS 9 Market Differentiation 9 Pace of technological change 10 Advances to the Printed Word 11 DRIVING FORCES 12 The Internet 13 The Information Highway 14 KEY SUCESS FACTORS 14

Microsoft History

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With this program
Gates and Allen launched their first company, Traf-O-Data. The two programmers were full of enthusiasm for the success of their new company; most communities, however, were reluctant to purchase from two kids: consequently, their fledgling company enjoyedonly marginal sales.

Education Attempt

Gates attended Harvard College in 1973 while Allen secured a job in Boston,
Massachusetts as a programmer for Honeywell. In 1974 Intel announced the advent of the 8080 chip that boasted 2,700 more tran-sistors than its predecessor.
Because of the disappointment they experienced in the hardware side of computing through dismal success in Traf-O-Data, Gates and Allen focused on new opportunities in the software side of computers. With a vision of millions of computers owned by individuals, the pair banked on competition between Japanese and American companies for control of the computer hardware market. With this in mind, and with the introduction of the 8080 microprocessor chip (and inevitable successors to the chip), Gates and Allen determined that their future lay in developing software for these computers.

The Motivational Side of Fear

During a cold, New England morning outside a newsstand in Harvard Square during one of his frequent visits to Bill Gates, Paul Allen picked up a copy of the
January issue of Popular Electronics magazine. The cover photo pictured a