Inspiring? A young Steve Ballmer pitching Windows 1.0 on television, a la late-night TV in the age before infomercials.
<Still shaking head… >
Requires, you guessed it, Windows Media Player (or VLC, I suppose).
Music: Sam Rivers :: Shockwave
Make : Nothing to do.
Ask me about hosting with birdhouse.
January 24th, 2005
Actually, I see this infomercial with a nostalgic eye. This was the time where Microsoft was a small software house with only a few dozen employees. It was the time where Balmer himself had to do the infomercial rather than paying an actor.
These were the times were Microsoft was trying their best…
Confimred. The video plays with VLC on MacOS X.
Eugenia, Microsoft is “trying their best” today. The problem is, they aren’t “trying their best” to deliver a stable, fault-tolerant and secure product. They are “trying their best” to protect Windows and Office licenses. And that’s what they have always concentrated upon.
And protecting licenses and providing quality are often mutually exclusive ideas for Microsoft. At least Windows abhorrent track record seems to indicate so.
And in November 1983 when Windows 1.0 shipped, Microsoft had 476 employees. Not “a few dozen.”
Correction: Microsoft announced Windows 1.0 in Novemebr 1983 with 476 employees. They shipped it in November 1985 with 910 employees.