What does it mean "Microsoft”? The name of the American computer giant comes from the fusion of two words – micro(computer) + soft(ware) – and appears for the first time in a letter written by Bill Gates to his first partner, Paul Allen (who died just over a year does). Era on November 29, 1975exactly 44 years ago.
“Microsoft might be a reasonable name for our fledgling company because it suggests two basic terms: microcomputers e ”, reads the text sent by Gates to the friend who had just founded the company together with him.
At the time, Gates was just 20 years old and Allen 22. They were two motivated and enterprising young people, but they certainly didn't imagine how far that project would push them, nor the extent of the technological revolution that their creature would trigger.
Gates was officially richest man in the world from 1996 to 2009 (with the exception of 2008, when it finished in third place).
Today, 44 years after that first christening letter, Microsoft has just closed its fiscal first quarter with earnings of $10,7 billion (up 21% over the same period last year) on a turnover of 33,1 billion (+ 14%).
