In April 1975, childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen created a software company named Microsoft. They started out selling programming languages and other tools for the MITS Altair 8800. Eventually, Microsoft created the operating system for the IBM PC: MS-DOS. (IBM renamed it PC-DOS.) The popularity of the IBM PC led to MS-DOS becoming the best-selling operating system in the world. Microsoft followed that up by releasing Windows. And the rest is history.
What’s a Xenix?
Before the introduction of MS-DOS, Microsoft had another operating system. Instead of writing one from scratch, they decided to purchase a license of AT&T’s Version 7 UNIX in 1978. Two years later, Microsoft announced the release of Xenix, “a portable, UNIX-based operating system for 16-bit microprocessors”. (AT&T didn’t license the name UNIX, so Microsoft had to come up with their own.)
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From the November 1985 issue of Unix World
(Quick note: AT&T had a confusing naming strategy. In 1975, they released Version 6 UNIX. They followed that up with Version 7 UNIX. Once they were allowed to sell Unix, AT&T released UNIX System III in 1982 and UNIX System V in 1983.)
Microsoft didn’t sell Xenix directly to end users. Instead, they sold directly to computer makers including: IBM, Intel, Management Systems Development, Tandy, Altos Computer, SCO, and Siemens. According to the February 1986 issue of Computerworld, Xenix was the most widely installed Unix-based microcomputer operating system.
Microsoft's XENIX operating system offers one solution to the software crisis developing in the microcomputer world. Unlike the operating systems offered for 8-bit machines, the XENIX system is a powerful multiuser timesharing system with hundreds of utilities and is the basis for a highly productive software development environment and a general-purpose applications system.
Bill Gates was 30 when this picture was taken.
The XENIX operating environment combines two key elements: the design of the widely acclaimed UNIX operating system and the inclusion of the major high-level languages that are standard within the 8-bit microcomputer world. Microsoft's transport of the XENIX system to major 16-bit microprocessors has made it the first hardware-independent operating system.
The heart of the XENIX system is the UNIX operating system developed at Bell Laboratories and licensed by Western Electric. The UNIX system's elegant design combines power, flexibility, and simplicity, and its vast array of software utilities greatly increases productivity. Thus, the UNIX system is an ideal candidate to serve as a solution to the software crisis.
Microsoft plans to make the XENIX operating system (which is an enhanced version of the UNIX system) into a commercial standard. And, in addition to supporting and enhancing the operating system proper, Microsoft will adapt high-level languages, such as its BASIC interpreter and compiler, FORTRAN, Pascal, and COBOL, and other software tools, such as data-base management and communications software, to run under the XENIX operating system.
Eventually, Xenix was available for PC/XT, x86, PDP-11, Z8001, 68k systems. However, once AT&T started selling UNIX, Microsoft decided that they decided that they could not compete and sold off Xenix to Santa Cruz Operation in 1987. (The Santa Cruz Operation part of the saga will be continued in another article.)
Afterwards, Microsoft focused on creating and selling their own operating systems. Eventually, taking over the world OS market (for good or ill).
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Wonderful! Something to emphasize as per Byte, one of the big commercial advantages of Xenix over MS-DOS "multi-user" capability. Xenix was quite popular for the new market of "small office" systems, such as accounting, inventory, payroll where you could have multiple networked Xenix PCs operating on the same database. MS-DOS would not add rudimentary networking until version 3.x and by then Microsoft almost lost out to Novel NetWare as OS/2 LanMan failed to take off.
Paul Allen was a big fan of Xenix and wrote a memo, "Future plans for MS-DOS 2.0
or The Bridge to XENIX", about how it could morph into MS-DOS 2.x as a family of operating systems. ;-)
Wonderful! Something to emphasize as per Byte, one of the big commercial advantages of Xenix over MS-DOS "multi-user" capability. Xenix was quite popular for the new market of "small office" systems, such as accounting, inventory, payroll where you could have multiple networked Xenix PCs operating on the same database. MS-DOS would not add rudimentary networking until version 3.x and by then Microsoft almost lost out to Novel NetWare as OS/2 LanMan failed to take off.
Paul Allen was a big fan of Xenix and wrote a memo, "Future plans for MS-DOS 2.0
or The Bridge to XENIX", about how it could morph into MS-DOS 2.x as a family of operating systems. ;-)
What an incredible magazine cover!