Microsoft, a multinational technology company with headquarters in Redmond, Washington, was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The company moved to Bellevue, Washington in 1979 and incorporated in 1981. The company has grown to become the world's largest software maker and a leader in cloud enterprise technology.

In 1991, Microsoft and technology company IBM began to part ways. After working closely together in the 1980s on personal computers, in 1991 IBM announced work on their own operating system, in direct competition to Microsoft's popular Windows product. This photo shows Microsoft chairman Bill Gates at a meeting of financial analysts, at which Microsoft promised a new Windows version scheduled to be released at the end of 1991.

Caption information source: "Microsoft accepts the IBM challenge," by Elizabeth J. Mann, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 26, 1991, p. C1.
Caption information also derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph.