50 Things You Didn't Know About Microsoft

Learn some fun facts about the PC giant as we celebrate the 38th anniversary of its founding.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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For nearly all of its 38 years, Microsoft has been recognized as a worldwide leader in software. And throughout its history, the company has provided us with programs and products that have been essential to the way we learned and worked. Due to the fact that Microsoft has all but dominated the personal computer market for the better part of three decades, you may feel as if you know all there is to know about the Redmond, Wash.-based company. But there's plenty the public doesn't know. From its genius billionaire founders to wild business practices, get more familiar with the tech conglomerate that helped revolutionize the computer landscape by checking out the 50 Things You Didn’t Know About Microsoft.

Software engineers, also known as “Softies,” take home a starting salary of $106,000.

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Co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen showcased their programming potential in high school by cracking into the security system of the Computer Center Corportation. The company soon hired the students to help "find bugs and weaknesses" in its system.

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Microsoft Office has over one billion users worldwide, while the company’s SkyDrive cloud service stores over one billion files.

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When founding the company back in 1975, Paul Allen and Bill Gates did business as “Micro-Soft” until the decision was made to ditch the hyphen and incorporate Microsoft Inc. in 1981.

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Like Google, the computer software giant puts its job applicants through an unorthodox interview process, which includes solving puzzles and answering brainteasers like “Why is a manhole cover round?” The logic behind this is to push forward thinking.

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Though shown to the public in 1983, Windows 1.0 would see its official release two years later.

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Over 76 percent of the company’s workforce is male, while 23 percent is female. The average employee age is 38.4 years.

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The Surface was created in secrecy at the company’s Studio B location in Redmond, Wash., which supposedly has an underground bunker where the development team worked on the tablet.

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Windows doesn’t allow for the creation of folders tagged CON, PRN, AUX, or NUL. The reason why is these are keywords reserved by DOS.

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Throughout its 38-year history, Microsoft has acquired over 150 companies: including Hotmail, Skype, Vision Corpoation, and Yammer. Six are worth over one billion.

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Microsoft files an estimated 3,000 patents a year and owns over 10,000, making it one of the top five patent owners in the country.

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It took 23 years since going public in 1986 for Microsoft to report its first-ever revenue drop.

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Original plans had Microsoft launching its operating system under the name “Interface Manager,” but marketing felt "Windows" worked best.

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Employees should never go thirsty, as Microsoft offers free beverages for everyone on staff, providing more than 23 million drinks a year.

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According to former VP of Windows Sales, Joachim Kempin, Microsoft had plans of acquiring SEGA, but the deal fell through because Bill Gates felt the gaming company didn’t have “enough muscle” to compete with Sony.

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When the company was first started, Microsoft had only three employees and $16,000 in the bank. By 2008, the company staffed close to 96,000 and racked up $60 billion in revenue.

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The Microsoft Research division employs over 850 PhDs who work in 13 labs around the world and tackle 55 areas of R&D including hardware development, social computing, and algorithmic theories.

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Word was originally developed for Microsoft’s own version of the Unix OS called Xenix, which was intended for use on microcomputers.

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Before building their PC software empire, Bill Gates and Paul Allen had another start-up called Traf-O-Data. The company was formed while the two were in high school with the objective of processing raw data from roadway traffic counters to create reports for engineers.

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The first Windows virus was known as WinVer 1.4 and hit in 1992.

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Six months before Google acquired YouTube for $1.6 billion, Microsoft passed on the opportunity to purchase it for half the price: $500 million.

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Musician Brian Eno is credited for creating the “Microsoft Sound” after accepting a $35,000 offer to compose the infamous start-up tune for Windows 95.

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The projected final name for Windows XP was Windows Oxygen, however, Microsoft’s marketing team thought it was best to run with the XP moniker with the initials representing “eXPerience.”

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Current CEO Steve Ballmer, who at the time was hired as Microsoft’s 30th employee, starred in the first ever Windows 1.0 commercial as an overly ecstatic salesman. As you can see, it didn’t require much for him to break into character.

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Microsoft has a tradition where on the anniversary of an employee’s hire date, that person has to bring a pound of M&Ms to work. Every additional year on staff equals an extra pound of candy in the office.

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The first Surface mockup was created from cardboard and secured by nothing more than Scotch tape. Those who’ve gotten their hands on it claim it resembles the final design.

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While attending Lakeside School with childhood chum Paul Allen, Bill Gates coded a scheduling program that placed him in classes with the most female students.

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Microsoft coined the term “tablet” back when it revealed its concept at the COMDEX Fall 2001 computer show in Las Vegas.

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It took Microsoft 11 years to go public.

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Apple attempted to sue Microsoft during the release of Windows 2.0 for infringing on interface copyrights such as drop-down menus and tiled windows. But the PC giant countersued stating the Cupertino-based company granted permission to create GUI elements based on the Mac OS and other programs.

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Over 5,000 pieces of contemporary artwork can be found spread across the company’s 150 campuses. According to Microsoft, the art helps reduce stress at the workplace and increase productivity.

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When Gates was still a freshman at Harvard University, he stated on his resume he'd be available from June 1974 and would be happy working “anywhere” at the suggested salary of $15,000. He dropped out of college the following year to found Microsoft.

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In 1985, the company was issued a patent based on the action of opening a new window when clicking a hyperlink.

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Microsoft Word has a number of auto-type sentence commands, but its most popular is “=rand(200,99),” which when entered without the quotes into a document outputs the following: The Quick Brown Fox Jumps over the Lazy Dog.

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Since 1999, Microsoft’s held a puzzle hunt at its campuses that take place throughout an entire weekend and encourage teams to solve puzzles to find a hidden prize. Every year introduces a new theme and change of location.

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Windows 95 is most remembered for welcoming the Internet Age thanks to its built-in Internet, dial-up networking, and plug and play support.

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Microsoft Office was first released in 1989 for the Macintosh before being launched for Windows.

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Microsoft's first project was to design a version of BASIC, a high-level programming language built for easy use, for the first-ever microcomputer: the MITS Altair 8800.

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Microsoft sued high schooler Mike Rowe for owning the domain name mikerowesoft.com on the grounds of copyright infringement. After Rowe refused to accept the repayment package of $10, the exact amount it cost to register the domain, he gave up the rights and was given a new compensation package that included an all-expense paid trip to Washington, Microsoft certification training, and an Xbox.

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Bill Gates and software architect Charles Simonyi referred to the Macintosh prototype as SAND: Steve’s Amazing New Device. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had soon given Microsoft access to the invention for application development purposes.

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Steve Ballmer became the first billionaire of the company that wasn’t a co-founder or relative of a founder thanks to his stock options package.

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Most known for its innovations in software, Microsoft has been manufacturing hardware dating back to 1983 with the introduction of the Microsoft Mouse 1.0.

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The Microsoft Corporate Campus is flooded with rabbits. Rumor has it an unknown group left a batch of “reproducing bunnies” on its campus, forcing employees to gather them up to be spayed and neutered.

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Every major Microsoft product has carried a codename before officially launching. You can view the entire list on the company's Wikipedia entry below.

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Contractors and temps are given an email address with a dash before the @ symbol, which permanent employees refer to as “dash trash.”

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Microsoft acquired a program in 1981 called QDOS (Quirky and Dirty operating system) for $25,000 and went on to rename it MS-DOS. IBM soon partnered with the company and MS-DOS became the preferential IBM PC OS.

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Microsoft’s first website was launched in 1993 for support services previously available on a CompuServe forum.

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The developers of Microsoft 95 carried stuffed animals as mascots to commence the transition of operating systems. Now you know why some of the internal system functions carried names such as BEAR35, BUNNY73 and PIGLET12.

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Microsoft has an annual budget of $9 billion specifically for research and development.

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For some odd reason, typing Q33N in Wingdings font and increasing the font size to 72 in Windows will give you the result above. That just so happens to be the flight number of a plane that struck one of the two World Trade Center towers on 911.

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