XENIX, DOS, and the Mac. During the early 1980’s,
Microsoft developed Chart and File for the Mac, and
these were later included in Office. Microsoft Works,
a junior version of Office, was released in 1986. In
1987, Microsoft purchased Forethought Incorpo-
rated, the company that developed PowerPoint, and
added this product to its inventory. Also in 1987,
Microsoft announced Excel as an upgrade of Multi-
plan for Windows. In 1988, Microsoft and Ashton-
Tate began work on a relational database, Microsoft
SQL Server, based on a relational database manage-
ment system licensed by Microsoft from Sybase and
enhanced by Microsoft and Ashton-Tate. The first
version was released in 1989.
Impact The software that Microsoft developed dur-
ing the 1980’s revolutionized the computer industry
by demonstrating that a company could be a success
if it specialized in computer software. During the
1980’s, Microsoft became increasingly profitable
and powerful, growing to become an international
company with facilities in Ireland, Mexico, and else-
where. As personal computers and microcomputers
became increasingly ubiquitous, Microsoft’s operat-
ing systems came to define many people’s experi-
ence of those computers. Indeed, both Microsoft’s
greatest supporters and its greatest detractors agree
on this point: For the majority of casual users, Micro-
soft Windows defines the possibilities and limita-
tions of the human-computer interface. It was the
company’s growth and strategies of the 1980’s that
brought it to such a dominant position in the in-
dustry.
Further Reading
Manes, Stephen, and Paul Andrews.Gates: How Micro-
soft’s Mogul Reinvented an Industr y—and Made Him-
self the Richest Man in America. Carmichael, Calif.:
Touchstone Press, 1994. Biography of Bill Gates,
focused on his professional career.
Tsang, Cheryl.Microsoft: First Generation. Somerset,
N.J.: John Wiley, 1999. Description of the twenty-
five-year development of Microsoft.
Wallace, James, and James Erickson.Hard Drive: Bill
Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire.
Carmichael, Calif.: HarperCollins, 1993. Account
of how Microsoft developed as a company.
George M. Whitson III
See also Apple Computer; Computers; Informa-
tion age; Science and technology.
Middle East and North America
Definition Diplomatic relations between two
world regionsAn inconsistent and frequently contradictor y American
policy in the Middle East saw an increase in terrorism while
leaving the settlement of the basic Israeli-Palestinian issue
unresolved.Caught by the constraints of the Cold War, the radi-
calization of the Islamic movement, the Iran-Iraq
conflict, and the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the United
States ended up pursuing a zigzag and often contra-
dictory course in Middle Eastern diplomacy in the
1980’s, but with a distinct pro-Israeli tilt in contrast
to President Jimmy Carter’s earlier attempts to be an
honest broker. Accordingly, America’s relations with
the Middle East—except for a few Arab moderate
states—continued to be indecisive and turbulent.
The replacement of U.S. secretary of state Alex-
ander M. Haig by George P. Shultz in July, 1982, ini-
tially prompted President Ronald Reagan to take a
more active role in the Arab-Israeli peace initiative,
especially in the light of rising tensions because of
the increase in Jewish settlements in the Israeli-
occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza, the
consequent militancy of Palestinian guerrillas, the
heating up and greater involvement of outsiders in
the Lebanese Civil War, and the escalation of the
Iran-Iraq conflict.Arab-Israeli Conflict Reagan’s call for a freeze on
Jewish settlements, re-echoing Carter’s call, was min-
gled with the characterization of Israel as America’s
“strategic ally,” which tended to mute requests for a
slowdown if not halt of such settlements in the face
of a determined conservative Israeli Likud Party gov-
ernment. Even the tepid American peace initia-
tive—the 1985 proposal to establish negotiations be-
tween a joint Palestinian-Jordanian delegation on
one hand and Israel to implement the Reagan Plan
of September 1, 1982, for a “Palestinian entity” on
the other—was deflected by the worsening situation
in Lebanon. On December 9, 1987, the first Pales-
tinian intifada (uprising) broke out in the Israeli-
occupied territories.
One reason for the intifada was Israeli prime min-
ister Yitzhak Shamir’s intransigence in accepting the
American-proposed land-for-peace formula as a ba-
sis for settling the forty-year-old conflict. Washing-644 Middle East and North America The Eighties in America