The History of Microsoft

Jeff's entire story is told with great visuals; we dug through thousands of old tapes and photographs to bring you this compelling documentary, which takes an incredible look into the history of technology, what life was like at Apple in 1980, how Jeff taught himself to program on an Apple II, and his first assignment, which was working on Visicalc, the first electronic spreadsheet.

Jeff Raikes is the Visionary behind Microsoft Office. In Part One, we got a great glimpse into Jeff's history and the history of the technology industry. In Part Two, Jeff Raikes talks about Odyssey, which was the codename for Microsoft Excel. Jeff explains making, along with Bill Gates, the tough decision of shifting Odyssey from the PC and instead focusing its initial release on the Apple Macintosh. He also talks about the dominant word processing products WordStar and Word Perfect, and about having an idea in 1987 for a presentation product before discovering Forethought, which had a product called PowerPoint.

Here at Microsoft, we are celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Microsoft Excel by taking a look through its compelling and dramatic history, which is filled with great tech tidbits. In this video, we talk to Scott Oki, Charles Simonyi, Jeff Raikes, and other visionaries behind Excel. We go back to the beginning of the story with Multiplan, MS-DOS, and Lotus 1-2-3. The initial codename for Excel was "Odyssey" and that project kicked off in 1983. Now, watch to learn more. Part Two will air tomorrow.

Part Two of The Excel 25th Anniversary Video brings us into the present and then takes us into the future of this popular product. We dive into Web Apps, The Cloud, and all things Excel 2010 as we explore the power of software.