Timeline of Microsoft Corporation

A history timeline of computing giant Microsoft.

Microsoft Founder Bill Gates shows the newly-released Windows 3.0
Microsoft Founder Bill Gates shows the newly-released Windows 3.0. Courtesy of Microsoft
Updated November 25, 2014

This timeline of Microsoft history accompanies our main article Microsoft - Profile of a Computing Giant.

  • 1975 Microsoft founded
  • January 1, 1979 Microsoft moves from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Bellevue, Washington
  • June 25, 1981 Microsoft incorporates
  • August 12, 1981 IBM introduces its personal computer with Microsoft's 16-bit operating system, MS-DOS 1.0
  • November, 1983 Microsoft Windows announced
  • Novenber, 1985 Microsoft Windows version 1.0 released
  • February 26, 1986 Microsoft moves to corporate campus in Redmond, Washington
  • March 13, 1986 Microsoft stock goes public
  • April, 1987 Microsoft Windows version 2.0 released
  • August 1, 1989 Microsoft introduces earliest version of Office suite of productivity applications
  • May 22, 1990 Microsoft launches Windows 3.0
  • August 24, 1995 Microsoft launches Windows 95
  • December 7, 1995 Internet by launching internet explorer a web browser.
  • June 25, 1998 Microsoft launches Windows 98
  • Jan. 13, 2000 Steve Ballmer named president and chief executive officer for Microsoft
  • Feb. 17, 2000 Microsoft launches Windows 2000
  • June 22, 2000 Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer outline Microsoft's .NET strategy for Web services
  • May 31, 2001 Microsoft launches Office XP
  • Oct. 25, 2001 Microsoft launches Windows XP
  • Nov. 15, 2001 Microsoft launches Xbox
  • Nov. 7, 2002 Microsoft and partners launch Tablet PC
  • April 24, 2003 Microsoft launches Windows Server 2003
  • Oct. 21, 2003 Microsoft launches Microsoft Office System
  • Nov. 22, 2005 Microsoft launches Xbox 360
  • Jan. 30, 2007 Microsoft launches Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office System to consumers worldwide
  • Feb. 27, 2008 Microsoft launches Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008
  • June 27, 2008 Bill Gates transitions from his day-to-day role at Microsoft to spend more time on his work at The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
  • June 3, 2009 Microsoft launches Bing search engine
  • Oct. 22, 2009 Microsoft launches Windows 7
  • June 15, 2010 Microsoft launches general availability of Office 2010
  • Nov. 4, 2010 Microsoft launches Kinect for Xbox 360
  • Nov. 10, 2010 Microsoft launches Windows Phone 7
  • Nov. 17, 2010 Microsoft announces availability of Microsoft Lync
  • June 28, 2011 Microsoft launches Office 365