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
