Sweating Bullets: Notes about Inventing PowerPointPowerPoint was the first presentation software designed for Macintosh and Windows, received the first venture capital investment ever made by Apple, then became the first significant acquisition ever made by Microsoft, and is now, twenty-five years later, installed on over one billion computers worldwide. Robert Gaskins (who invented the idea, managed its design and development, and then headed the new Microsoft group) has written this book to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of PowerPoint, recounting stories of the perils narrowly evaded as a startup, dissecting the complexities of being the first distant development group in Microsoft, and explaining decisions and insights that enabled PowerPoint to become a lasting success. |
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35mm slides acquisition Apple Apple’s applications Apps Bill Gates Bob Gaskins building bullet charts clip art color competitors corporate create crosoft customers Dennis Austin didn’t disk documents dows early employees erPoint FileMaker fonts Forethought History 1987 format Gaskins Genigraphics going Graphics Business Unit hardware hired IBM PC idea imaging internal investment investors Jeff Raikes Jon Shirley knew later machines Macintosh MACWARE manager meeting Microsoft Mike Maples million months MS-DOS needed Office overhead transparencies personal computers platform Point PowerPoint 2.0 PowerPoint Marketing 1986 printers problem Redmond release restart Rudkin Sand Hill Road schedule screen sell service bureaus shipped Silicon Valley spec standard startup strategy style success talk templates thought tion user interface visuals wanted Windows 3.0 Windows PowerPoint 2.0 Windows version Word workstations Xerox Xerox PARC