The Windows Era

Just after midnight on August 24, 1995, a student named Jonathan Prentice walked into a bookshop in Auckland, New Zealand, pulled out 200 New Zealand dollars, and became the first owner of Windows 95. Turning to a reporter, Prentice declared: “I will be able to play solitaire and send faxes at the same time.” And with that rallying cry, the Windows 95 craze exploded. Lines formed around the world as consumers jostled to buy copies; journalists in Poland prepared to take a Microsoft-sponsored submarine ride under the Baltic Sea; The Times of London handed out free papers wrapped in a Windows ad; and the Empire State Building lit up in Windows’ signature colors. Within a month, Microsoft’s new operating system had sales of more than $250 million and Bill Gates went from being a nerd to … well, he was still a nerd, but an invincible rock-star nerd. The future was very clear: PCs — running Microsoft software — would be the single most important device in our lives.

From:Time Your Attack: Oracle’s Lost Revolution