Steve Ballmer

The Air Force was the first big Windows customer.

The Air Force was the first big Windows customer.

Our first big Windows customer, at least as I remember it, was the US Air Force. And they were buying single copies of Windows. When you say government, there's really two governments in this country. There's government and there's the military. And the military is a much more disciplined, advanced user of IT. They're just better. They're more professionally run than most parts of government.

Our first big Windows customer, at least as I remember it, was the US Air Force. And they were buying single copies of Windows. When you say government, there's really two governments in this country. There's government and there's the military. And the military is a much more disciplined, advanced user of IT. They're just better. They're more professionally run than most parts of government.

So yeah, it was the Air Force. So you got like a little bit, but.

So yeah, it was the Air Force. So you got like a little bit, but.

No, no, that's for sure true. Bill's passion, Bill had passions a lot of places. But you'd say the apps group and what Windows could deliver to the apps, quite appropriately, I'd say that's where a lot of Bill's brain cycles went. I had also hired Dave Cutler. Dave Cutler had been the architect of the VMS operating system for digital equipment. We had DOS and Windows.

No, no, that's for sure true. Bill's passion, Bill had passions a lot of places. But you'd say the apps group and what Windows could deliver to the apps, quite appropriately, I'd say that's where a lot of Bill's brain cycles went. I had also hired Dave Cutler. Dave Cutler had been the architect of the VMS operating system for digital equipment. We had DOS and Windows.

And when we were talking to Cutler about coming here, he says, I don't want to work any toy operating systems. And I had to say to Dave, good thing, because we have a toy operating system. But Dave is the key to getting us there. You know, we said, look, you got to build an operating system whose API looks like Windows and whose user interface looks like Windows.

And when we were talking to Cutler about coming here, he says, I don't want to work any toy operating systems. And I had to say to Dave, good thing, because we have a toy operating system. But Dave is the key to getting us there. You know, we said, look, you got to build an operating system whose API looks like Windows and whose user interface looks like Windows.

Yeah, and you might make some changes because you have to, but it's got to be a robust operating system. It's got to have a secure kernel. It's got to have all of these things. The product set that you had wasn't really enterprise grade yet. No, we had a joint development agreement, a joint agreement on land manager with a company called 3Com. It wasn't all our stuff.

Yeah, and you might make some changes because you have to, but it's got to be a robust operating system. It's got to have a secure kernel. It's got to have all of these things. The product set that you had wasn't really enterprise grade yet. No, we had a joint development agreement, a joint agreement on land manager with a company called 3Com. It wasn't all our stuff.

We had a development agreement with a company called Sybase to do the SQL database because we were trying to figure out all these pieces IBM would have. And we didn't have any of that. An operating system alone is not going to do it. You need all these other components. And if you want to have backend infrastructure, we started scrambling on that in the 80s.

We had a development agreement with a company called Sybase to do the SQL database because we were trying to figure out all these pieces IBM would have. And we didn't have any of that. An operating system alone is not going to do it. You need all these other components. And if you want to have backend infrastructure, we started scrambling on that in the 80s.

So we had all these infrastructure pieces that we had to build if we wanted to sell to, I'll say, business customers. We weren't even thinking about, when you say enterprises, sometimes people think very large companies. But we couldn't sell the companies of 20 people without some of this stuff, or 50 people.

So we had all these infrastructure pieces that we had to build if we wanted to sell to, I'll say, business customers. We weren't even thinking about, when you say enterprises, sometimes people think very large companies. But we couldn't sell the companies of 20 people without some of this stuff, or 50 people.

Well, Paul Allen. I mean, Paul's the key. Paul is the one who said, Build said, we're never going to be a hardware company. And when the Altair came out, the first real sort of microprocessor-based computer, Paul says, okay, let's write all the software that these things will ever need. Yeah. So Bill and I had a lot of the execution around that, but that was the push.

Well, Paul Allen. I mean, Paul's the key. Paul is the one who said, Build said, we're never going to be a hardware company. And when the Altair came out, the first real sort of microprocessor-based computer, Paul says, okay, let's write all the software that these things will ever need. Yeah. So Bill and I had a lot of the execution around that, but that was the push.

And Paul was cracking on me in the early 80s to start building an apps group. Come on, Steve. Come on, Steve.

And Paul was cracking on me in the early 80s to start building an apps group. Come on, Steve. Come on, Steve.