Who created PowerPoint?

Microsoft was not the creator of what we know today as Microsoft PowerPoint. They actually took over the company that created it and, to make matters worse, the main contender to buy it was Apple.

Before we continue with the blog, we introduce you to our online store Licendi, where you can buy the legal PowerPoint license at an affordable price and with the activation guarantee.

The answer to "Who created PowerPoint?" is easy, it was Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin. They had the idea that presentations were the future. Back in 1987, they were working at a company called Forethought Inc, where they spent two years developing a graphical presentation application.

They wanted to call it "Presenter" but that name was already bought, so they named it "PowerPoint" and in principle, it only had one version available: on Macintosh.

Apple loved the project. At the official presentation was the CEO of the apple company, who praised the new software, indicating that they saw a lot of potential in it and assured that they were quite interested.

On the other hand, Microsoft was not so sure. They had plans to do something similar but a bit more limited and in fact, Bill Gates saw it as a software that could be broken down and become functionalities of Microsoft Word, instead of a separate program.

A few months later, however, his employees managed to convince him and arranged a meeting with Forethought to find out how sales of PowerPoint for Macintosh were going.

To Microsoft's surprise, the software had sold out - it was a complete success.

Microsoft made an initial offer to buy the entire company for $5.3 million, but Forethough declined: there were more interesting options on the table. Then Microsoft offered them 100,000 of their shares (worth $12 million at the time) but still no luck.

Time went by and other companies such as Borland, Xerox and especially Apple were also bidding, but Forethought realized that Microsoft was the one they could make the most profit from.

Finally, Microsoft won the game by buying the company for 14 million dollars in cash... with the future Microsoft PowerPoint included. Forethought was Microsoft's first major purchase.

Since then, Microsoft PowerPoint came to put slides to the presentations of our lives :D

Remember that you can buy this famous program by purchasing a PowerPoint license directly from our website, or any of our Office products.

If you have any further questions, feel free to contact us or leave a comment below.