operating systems, including OS/2, Windows, and
Windows NT.
Windows Microsoft was impressed with the XEROX
Alto computer, which featured a graphical user in-
terface (GUI) and was developed in 1981. Apple
Computer, which was also impressed by Xerox’s in-
novations, visited the Xerox Palo Alto Research Cen-
ter (Xerox PARC) and secured permission to utilize
some of Xerox’s ideas and technology in its prod-
ucts. Microsoft, in turn, licensed some of the ele-
ments of Apple’s GUI (then under development for
the Apple Macintosh computer) to use in its own
products.
Microsoft released the first version of Windows in
- A second version followed in 1988. Version 2 of
Windows featured overlapping windows, an element
of the Apple GUI that Microsoft had not explicitly
licensed. This prompted Apple to sue Microsoft.
(Apple would eventually lose this lawsuit, based pri-
marily on the fact that it had licensed some of its
technology to Microsoft.) However, neither Win-
dows 1.0 nor Windows 2.0 generated much excite-
ment in the marketplace. With lessons learned from
developing OS/2’s Presentation Manager, as well as
software for the Mac, Microsoft released Windows
3.0 in 1990, finally achieving significant popularity
and success with a GUI-based operating system.
Microsoft began working with IBM in 1985 to de-
velop OS/2 for IBM to install on the PS2. The two
companies publicly announced their joint venture
in 1987. The partnership did not work well, however,
and Microsoft dropped support for OS/2 in 1990,
when Windows 3 proved to be successful.
Microsoft began development of Windows NT
(new technology) in 1988. Windows up to that time
had run on top of DOS, and the company decided it
was time to replace the low-level operating system
with a more advanced architecture. The shape of
this new architecture was defined by Dave Cutler,
former architect of the VMS operating system for
VAX mainframes. Microsoft hired Cutler in 1988. In
1991, the company hired Richard Rashid to join the
project. Rashid had developed the Mach kernel for
UNIX, and he added a microkernel to Windows NT,
making it very efficient. Windows NT was released in
1993 as the operating system of the future and was an
immediate success.
Other Items Microsoft developed a number of net-
work products during the 1980’s. The NetBIOS net-
work protocol was developed by Sytec in 1983 for
IBM and Microsoft. This broadband local area net-
work (LAN) used proprietary Sytec protocols on the
IBM PC network. LAN Manager was initially devel-
oped in 1987 as a network to use with OS/2.
Microsoft, in cooperation with 3COM, continued to
develop LAN Manager after the OS/2 project was
canceled. In 1990, Microsoft included much of the
LAN Manager technology in Windows NT.
Microsoft Office was also developed during the
1980’s. The first version was released for Apple’s
Mac in 1989; the first version for Windows followed
in 1990. Office combined a series of different appli-
cations with different development histories in a
single package. Microsoft had developed its first ap-
plication, during the early part of the decade: a
spreadsheet called MultiPlan, released in 1983. In
the same year, Microsoft put together a team, led by
Richard Brodie, that produced Microsoft Word forThe Eighties in America Microsoft 643
Microsoft founder Bill Gates in 1984.(AP/Wide World Photos)