October 28, 1955

William Henry Gates III born in Seattle

1975

Harvard sophomore Gates and school chum Paul Allen write a software language for a personal computer and establish a company, Micro-Soft

1979

Rechristened Microsoft with 28 employees and $2.5m in sales, head office moves to Seattle. Gates rebuffs bid from billionaire Ross Perot

1980

Develops MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System), licensing it to IBM for the first PC

1983

Microsoft unveils its first Windows operating system, using the point-and-click commands of a mouse

1986

With 1,400 employees and revenues of nearly two hundred million dollars, Microsoft's stock is sold to the public. Bill Gates becomes a billionaire

1988

Microsoft becomes the world's largest software company

1990

Windows 3.0 proves to be an instant success. Microsoft's revenues climb above one billion dollars

August 1995

Microsoft introduces its own free browser included with each copy of Windows

December 7, 1995

An alarmed Gates announces that the Internet compels Microsoft to alter its business model, and henceforth Microsoft will become internet-centric

May 1998

After settlement negotiations collapse, the justice department and 20 state attorneys general file a lawsuit charging Microsoft with antitrust (competition) violations

October 1998

Federal antitrust trial begins in Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's court and is expected to take six weeks

December 31, 1998

Microsoft's profits of nearly $4.5bn are twice those of the world's largest corporation, General Motors

November 5, 1999

Judge Jackson concludes that Microsoft was guilty of holding monopoly power

January 14, 2000

Bill Gates steps down as chief executive to become chief software architect. Steve Ballmer takes over as chief executive and president

April 3, 2000

Judge Jackson, after four months of mediation, issues his conclusions of law, finding that Microsoft violated the US's antitrust laws. Microsoft launches an appeal

June 7, 2000

Judge Jackson issues his final judgment, ordering that Microsoft be broken up into two companies and imposing conduct restrictions on the company's behaviour for several years