Brief History

Microsoft started trading in 1975 and by 1988 had become the worlds most successful software company. Initial success was based upon developer tools (mainly basic), thereafter huge growth came from the contract to supply the operating system for the IBM PC in 1981, MS-DOS. The release of Windows 3.0 in 1990 continued this huge success in supplying the vast majority of operating systems for PCs which continues to the day. Excel (1984) and Word (1989) laid the foundations for further amazing success with Office, first released in 1989. The development of SQL Server (1988) and Windows NT (1993) laid the foundation for a 3rd area of dramatic success with Server Platforms: with Windows Server totally eclipsing Novel then Exchange Server rapidly overtaking Lotus Notes as the dominant Messaging platform for corporations. (Incidentally Ray Ozzie, the creator of Lotus Notes, became chief software architect of Microsoft in June 2006).

Microsoft typically will not have the best product with version 1. The reason they always succeed is that they relentlessly improve the product, based on continuous learning and feedback from customer experience. They also dedicate huge resources to development and use their global geographical reach to sell in large numbers across the whole planet, enabling a sales price per unit typically well below competitor prices. This model means that even small companies can benefit from powerful technology that may have cost hundreds of millions to develop at a very reasonable price. So typically by version 3 they become the market leader for that software segment.