#PC OS MARKET SHARE BY MONTH SOFTWARE#
Ultimately it was the product that allowed Microsoft’s transformation from a programming languages company to a software development firm. In one of those quote-perfect moments, Bill Gates was apparently initially told by IBM representatives, “Don't get too excited and don't think anything big is going to happen”. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family, and the main OS for IBM PC compatible PCs during the 1980s and the early 1990s. MS-DOS went through eight versions, until Microsoft stopped development in 2000.
#PC OS MARKET SHARE BY MONTH CODE#
Should to wish to, you can download the source and object code to Microsoft’s MS-DOS operating system versions 1.1 and 2.0 – for non-commercial use only – thanks to an agreement between Microsoft Corporation and the Computer History Museum. The software was then substantially rewritten by Microsoft to support subdirectories and hard disks, before version 2.0 was released with the IBM PC-XT in March of 1983. PC DOS version 1.0, which supported only floppy disks, was shipped in August 1981, when IBM first released its PC.
Microsoft didn’t have an operating system at the time, and so first licensed, then bought, 86-DOS, an operating system written by Tim Paterson and owned by Seattle Computer Products, for $75,000 in July 1981 and began modifying it to meet IBM’s specification. MS-DOS resulted from a request by IBM for an operating system to use in its IBM PC range of personal computers. The company first entered the OS business in 1980 with its own version of Unix, called Xenix, but it was MS-DOS ( M icro soft Disk Operating System) that really put them on the map. Microsoft was officially established on 4 April 1975, by childhood friends Paul Allen and Bill Gates. But that all started somewhere, and November 1980 seems a good place to start.Ħ November 1980 - Microsoft signs a contract with IBM to create an operating system Microsoft may not be the dominant force it once was – Apple is now the world’s biggest tech company in terms of revenue, profit, assets and market cap – but it is still the world’s leading software company, significantly ahead of Oracle in second place according to figures from Forbes Global 2000.