{"id":12805,"date":"2025-04-07T09:00:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T09:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vmvision.it\/?p=12805"},"modified":"2025-04-07T09:08:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T09:08:13","slug":"microsoft-turns-50-here-are-10-ways-bill-gates-company-changed-our-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vmvision.it\/en\/microsoft-turns-50-here-are-10-ways-bill-gates-company-changed-our-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Turns 50: Here Are 10 Ways Bill Gates\u2019 Company Changed Our Lives."},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/span><\/div>

Microsoft Turns 50: Here Are 10 Ways Bill Gates\u2019 Company Changed Our Lives.<\/p>\n<\/div>

by Giuditta Mosca<\/em>
\nSource: la Repubblica<\/a><\/p>\n

On April 4, 1975, what is now one of the most influential companies in the world was born. From the dream of bringing a personal computer to every desk to Artificial Intelligence, here is how Microsoft has marked our history.<\/p>\n

On April 4, 1975, William Henry Gates III and Paul Gardner Allen founded Microsoft, a company that was born in Albuquerque (New Mexico, USA) and that today celebrates its first 50 years of life.<\/p>\n

Allen, who died in 2018, left the company in 1983 and Bill Gates, over the decades, was able to transform a startup into a giant, going beyond the dream of bringing a PC to every desk, as he himself has repeatedly stated over the years. Bill Gates left the company in 2008, but continued to influence its choices at times.<\/p>\n

Microsoft, which in 2024 exceeded 3 trillion dollars in capitalization (2.73 trillion euros), has changed the lives of users and IT professionals, also helping to spread tools and technologies that were invented and patented by others.<\/p>\n

Here are 10 ways in which Microsoft has made things easier for us.<\/p>\n

Personal computers and Windows<\/strong><\/p>\n

The graphical interface of Windows 1.0 dates back to 1985 and paved the way for more recent operating systems. Xerox and Apple had already released systems with icons and windows but the ease of use and the (relatively) low price, proposed by Microsoft, have created a certain distance from the competition. The graphical interface, which today seems obvious to everyone, is the child of the MS-DOS operating system, which Microsoft distributed on IBM computers (at the time considered the international standard) starting in 1980.<\/p>\n

Over the decades, Bill Gates’ dream of bringing a PC to every desk has come true, exceeding the rosiest expectations, holding approximately 72% of the world market (data March 2025).<\/p>\n

The use of the mouse<\/strong><\/p>\n

The mouse dates back to the 1960s. Adopted by Apple before Microsoft, it was the latter that popularized its use, thanks also to the spread of the Solitaire game, installed by default on all operating systems of the Redmond giant, designed specifically to make the use of buttons and the ability to drag objects from one part of the screen to another more familiar.<\/p>\n

Microsoft Office<\/strong><\/p>\n

The history of the different software that make up the Office package has different origins. However, Microsoft has managed to standardize the use of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, today the reference for the treatment of tests, data and email.<\/p>\n

Internet Explorer<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before the birth of Google and after the advent of Mosaic and Netscape Navigator, Microsoft proposed Internet Explorer, a browser available since 1995 in the Microsoft Plus! package for Windows 95, then preinstalled on the following operating systems, thus contributing to the spread of web browsing.<\/p>\n

Over the years, thanks to the popularity of other browsers (above all Firefox and Chrome) and some security and speed problems, Internet Explorer has lost ground until it was abandoned in 2022, in favor of the more responsive and modern Microsoft Edge.<\/p>\n

Plug and play<\/strong><\/p>\n

Introduced by Microsoft in 1995 (but already in use by Apple), plug and play has reduced the need for user intervention in configuring the hardware. If it was initially a bit shaky, this feature has become much more stable over the years and, especially with the advent of Windows 8, has shown an enviable maturity. Today, for example, it is possible to install a printer without any human intervention.<\/p>\n

The cloud<\/strong><\/p>\n

The cloud is not a prerogative of Microsoft but, given the widespread diffusion of Windows operating systems, the role of the Redmond company becomes crucial for many organizations.<\/p>\n

All the software produced by Microsoft can now be used on Azure, the cloud computing platform that offers services, storage space and computing power.<\/p>\n

Individual users, with an expense that varies between 10 and 13 euros per month, can use Microsoft Office (now Office 365) and store up to a Terabyte (1024 Gigabytes) of data on the cloud.<\/p>\n

Microsoft\u2019s cloud supports mobile working and makes it easier for companies to manage smart working, as well as offering full integration with the authentication and file access policies that organizations adopt to protect their systems and data.<\/p>\n

Gaming<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2001, Microsoft launched Xbox, the gaming console that helped shake up the entire video game industry, revived by Sony\u2019s PlayStation 1, which arrived in Europe in 1995. Over the years, Microsoft has developed online features \u2013 allowing players to join together anywhere in the world \u2013 and has secured a growing amount of playable titles, as demonstrated by the acquisition of Bethesda in 2020.<\/p>\n

Artificial Intelligence<\/strong><\/p>\n

The partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI has brought generative AI to any computer. Copilot uses OpenAI language models and Microsoft Graph data to facilitate the experience of using computers and software. After bringing a personal computer to every desk, time is also reshaping Microsoft’s dream, determined to contribute to the spread of AI assistants.<\/p>\n

Cyber \u200b\u200bSecurity<\/strong><\/p>\n

Windows operating systems, precisely because they are so widespread, attract the attention of cybercrime and this has pushed Microsoft to redesign the relationship between users and security, providing them with systems with a high degree of security. Windows Defender, BitLocker, Secure Boot and Trusted Platform Module are software and hardware that protect devices and data.<\/p>\n

These technologies are transparent, so they work without any particular human intervention. The consistency with which Microsoft releases patches and updates has eliminated the need to rely on third-party solutions to guarantee device security.<\/p>\n

The relationship between Microsoft and IT professionals<\/strong><\/p>\n

Microsoft operating systems have simplified the lives of information technology professionals. Active Directory (actually an evolution of the LDAP protocol born during the early nineties) allows the control of devices connected to a network, allows the management of users as well as allows the distribution or removal of software remotely.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, over the years, the installation and maintenance of Microsoft servers have become much easier and more immediate.<\/p>\n

There are many examples. System administrators no longer of very first hair remember how cumbersome the management of servers with Windows NT on board was and how linear it became to carry out more complex operations starting from Windows 2000 Server (released at the beginning of 2000) up to Windows Server 2025, a version capable of supporting advanced workloads (typical of artificial intelligence) and able to make virtualization and identity management easier.<\/p>\n

Read the article on the la Repubblica website:
\nhttps:\/\/www.repubblica.it\/tecnologia\/2025\/04\/04\/news\/microsoft_compie_50_anni_ecco_come_l_azienda_di_bill_gates_ci_ha_cambiato_la_vita-424106734\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On April 4, 1975, what is now one of the most influential companies in the world was born. From the dream of bringing a personal computer to every desk to Artificial Intelligence, here is how Microsoft has marked our history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12811,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vmvision.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vmvision.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vmvision.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vmvision.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vmvision.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12805"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/vmvision.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12817,"href":"https:\/\/vmvision.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12805\/revisions\/12817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vmvision.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vmvision.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vmvision.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vmvision.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}