Microsoft Legends: Mike Maples Sr.

Everybody knows Bill Gates. But who are the tech wizards behind the scene that created the software that we use today? -- In this Pilot Episode (#01) of Microsoft (MSFT) Legends, we are going to talk about Mike Maples. The former IBM executive who joined Microsoft back in 1988 and the man behind the Application Division which became the Microsoft Office division in the early 90s. Yep, that's before Steven Sinofsky's rise to Office.

Beginnings: Redmond, Washington State, USA --- Microsoft co-founder and CEO Bill Gates with other Microsoft executives: Steve Ballmer (left) and Mike Maple (center)

Mike Maples graduated from Oklahoma University with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and earned his master of business administration at Oklahoma City University. He joined Microsoft on May 1, 1988, eight months before David Cutler.

Maples was responsible for all product development and marketing activities. By the time he retired from Microsoft, he was the executive vice president of the Worldwide Products Group and a member of the Office of the CEO, reporting directly to Bill Gates. Under his stint at Redmond, several key engineers joined him, among them Steven Sinofsky, after his short tenure as the CEO's technical assistant.

It should be noted that during Maple's era, the Office products as we know them today were divided into sub-divisions. Maples created the first Application Division Business Units which included: the Analysis Business Unit (Excel, Pete Higgins), Word Business Unit (led by Jeff Raikes), Graphics Business Unit (PowerPoint, led by Bob Gaskins, the founder of the company that created PowerPoint), Entry Business Unit (Microsoft Works, led by Susan Boeschen), and the Data Access Business Unit (Access, codenamed Omega at the time, led for a short time by the late and great Jeff Harbers). Under each of these were Development, Product Management, Test, Program Management, and User Education. There was also a small shared Tools team reporting to Mike.

As a result, Mike's troops acted like a startup within the giant belly of Microsoft. it was the BU organizational framework and the strong empowered leaders Mike put in charge that enabled Excel to beat Lotus, Word to beat WordPerfect, and (later) Access to beat Ashton-Tate.

Mike also created the very first career ladder system -- before that, there were no standard job descriptions, compensation was fairly ad hoc, and it wasn't at all clear what you had to do to advance in your career. That's a practice that came directly from IBM -- along with, I believe, the first version of the performance review system. For a while, the Apps Division had career ladders but no one else did -- that's the kind of thing you don't think to focus on in a startup. A few years later it was extended to the Systems Division and the rest of the company.

Mike joined Microsoft in an environment with a lot of young and very ambitious people, some of whom no doubt probably thought they deserved his job. But it wasn't long before everyone realized there was an amazing amount of knowledge about how to run a large organization that we didn't know -- and didn't know we didn't know. In my opinion, Mike is one of the few people responsible for Microsoft's transition from its awkward teenage years to its successful young adulthood. People at Microsoft have a tremendous amount of admiration and respect for him and they actually think of him often whenever I think about organizational maturity and scale.

He currently lives in Austin, TX, and helps establish startups.

Sofiane M. MEROUANI

Once upon a time in Xerox Parc

"I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it"?

Bill Gates.

In the late 70s, Xerox at Palo Alto, California, pioneered the first graphical user interface or GUI for the future of computing. At that time, most computers ran arcane unfriendly text-based command prompts (Pre MS-DOS era) using only the keyboard. But Xerox turned the dial to eleven, by introducing a new pointing device called the mouse which allowed users to manipulate any objects on the screen. With this breakthrough invention, Xerox truly achieved something unique for mankind.

The only catch is, they failed to ship it.

Xerox Parc Engineers Invented the Future

So in 1979, Xerox invited Apple for a tour and showcased their brand-new invention to Steve Jobs who 'ripped off' the idea of the GUI right into the Apple Lisa he spearheaded back then for business users but failed miserably. Until 1984, when Apple released the famous and overly expensive Macintosh for the messes. While their competitors still relied on arcane text-based command prompts, the Macintosh used a bit-mapped graphics display. Individual applications appeared in floating, resizable, and overlapping windows, instead of fully occupying the screen. The interface was optimized for manipulation via the mouse, not the keyboard.

Tech wizards at Palo Alto, CA

In order for the Apple Macintosh to thrive, they needed third-party developers, and Microsoft was the top provider. Founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975, Microsoft blossomed into a million-dollar software provider and used the BASIC language to support every personal computing platform available at that time. When Macintosh was released in 1984, Microsoft started porting their fledgling software like Multiplan, Word, and Excel to Mac.

But Bill Gates had another bright idea in mind.

Suggested Reading: Long before Steven Sinofsky took the helm of the Office Division, the legendary Mike Maples Sr. drove Microsoft's Application Division to the pinnacle of success. As a former IBM executive, who joined Redmond on labor day in 1988, Maples was the inspiration for many within the company, including his son Mike Maples Jr. Find out more on our pilot episode of Microsoft Legends here.

While Microsoft was still providing software for the Mac, Gates' troop worked closely with Steve Jobs' in order to refine Macintosh's user interface. They defined various on-screen elements that we're all familiar with now, like the radio buttons, dialog boxes, and the doublewide outline around the default buttons. Because Microsoft kept supporting this new platform, they learned as time went by how to improve the user interface, and why not create their own operating system with all that they acquired while working with Apple? (The same thing happened with Sony when developing Nintendo Play Station peripheral add-on in the late 80s.) After all, Microsoft's revenues came from selling software for Macintosh, and they amassed enough capital for Gates's Research and Development division to start thinking about making an in-house' serious competitor for Apple.

So works on what would be "Interface Manager", an add-on, that is to say, a piece of software that acted as a layer and sit on the top of the venerable MS-DOS, started in 1981 when a computer scientist Chase Bishop invented the first electronic model for Microsoft. in 1983, Microsoft announced Windows. And Apple became downright suspicious.

It took Microsoft two years to create the first version of Windows. They were late at the party, as the niche market for the operating system was already filled with fierce competitors. Apple Lisa and Macintosh were selling at higher prices and the runners-up like VisiCorp had released several DOS-like graphical shells in an attempt to capitalize on the GUI hoopla and make PCs more friendly.

So Microsoft had a lot of homework to do since the first version of Windows was less sophisticated and really worse in design as compared to Macintosh. It would lack some of that system’s more advanced and useful features, like support for overlapping windows. Instead, on-screen windows could only be tiled onscreen.

But Windows stood a very little chance against Apple. After some initial excitement in 1984, The Macintosh bombed due to a lack of resources, compatible applications, and higher prices. Steve Jobs was ousted a year after the first version of Windows was released.

Mike Maple ran Microsoft's Application Division in late 80s.

With no viable competitors in sight, Microsoft engineers went back to the lab and started improving the GUI for the upcoming version of Windows. In the meantime, Gates hit his first billion mark in his bank account and went on a recruiting trip with his lieutenants for the greatest minds around the block. David Cutler from DEC and Mike Maples from IBM joined the Microsoft bandwagon in 1988, while Jim Alchin followed suit in 1991. With Windows 3.0 achieving considerable success in the early 90s, these legends would drive the success of Windows and Office ever further for the future and beyond.

Sofiane M. MEROUANI

The Race to the Cyberspace

Windows 95 was missing a crucial element for its success: A web browser.

Note: This is a pilot article I wrote in an attempt to gauge the audience's interest.

The future looked bright for Microsoft as the phenomenal launch of Windows 95 approached. However, at a very last moment, the company realized that its flagship product missed one important key element: a web browser, a piece of software that would allow end-users to surf the then-nascent World Wide Web. Because works on Windows 95 were completed in early 1995, it was too late for Microsoft to integrate a browser into the package as it would cost time and money for the company.

During the early years of the web, Internet Explorer was delivered on floppy disks, and on CDs later on.

Clearly, Redmond was lagging behind its main competitors - chiefly Netscape -, and Microsoft - back in Christmas 1994 - went on a shopping spree to do what it did best during its early years to expand its market: to acquire a company that would produce a web browser, bundled as an add-on for Windows 95 and called it a day.

During the 90s, Microsoft's business practice consisted of "Embrasse, Extend, and Extinguish" where they would acquire a piece of software from a small company, improve it with features specific to Microsoft and Windows, enough to be popular with the audience that would stick with Windows and then extinguish that same company that created that software. When Microsoft's predatorial search ended on Netscape's radar, the latter quickly signed deals with its partner to bundle Netscape Navigator into their offering. AOL and CompuServe, which back in the day were America's biggest internet service providers - decided to follow suit. The goal was to prevent Bill Gates to get into the web browser market.

So the only way for Microsoft to get into the competition was to get a license of Mosaic from Spyglass - the first pioneering company that produced a working browser back in the early 90s. Originally Microsoft wanted to integrate Mosaic right into Windows 95 and declined to pay any royalty and opted for a one-time fee. Spyglass refused.

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Since the final build of Windows 95 - bearing number 490 - was completed and locked, it would have been risky for Microsoft to reverse-engineer the operating system for a last-minute change just to inject codes of a web browser without delaying one more time the launch of the operating system (Remember, Windows 95 was supposed to be released two years earlier and badged as Windows 93 and seen by many as a quantum leap compared to Windows 3.0). From a financial perspective, it would have cost the company $ 1 million to create an in-house web browser from scratch and it would miss the Windows 95 launch. Worse, even if they sped up the development schedule to meet the deadline, it would lead to massive additional costs.

As a result, it offered $2 million for the Mosaic source code, with stipulations that limited its reliance on Spyglass. Microsoft would receive only a single snapshot of Mosaic's source code from which Redmond would be free to tinker around and create its own web browser for Windows, Mac, and Unix. Spyglass agreed.

Thomas Reardon is credited as the father of the very first version of Internet Explorer

Enter, Thomas Reardon, a computer scientist who, like the self-proclaimed Autocrat Steven Sinofsky, David Cutler, and Jim Allchin, fell under Gates' search for the smartest tech wizards around the bloc. (Reardon was actually spotted by Gate's then-girlfriend Ann Winblad during a computer fair). The founder convinced Reardon to work for his empire. The young Irish man began working at Microsoft as an intern in the Summer of 1994 and was tasked to lead a one-man assault against Netscape Navigator. In fact, Reardon was the only Microsoft engineer who created the first version of Internet Explorer 1.0. When Microsoft shipped Windows 95 with great fanfare, they added a retail box Plus! Package, a companion of some sort for their brand new operating system that included a set of enhancements, an early ancestor of Power Toys, and Internet Explorer 1.0 was added to the mix.

As was the case with the very first version of Windows 1.0, Internet Explorer was met with a lukewarm reception from the audience who preferred the venerable Netscape to Microsoft's in-house browser. After all, Netscape was one year ahead of the competition. But from Microsoft's perspective, IE 1.0 was always intended to be a placeholder for the next version of the browser that would be improved over time. As a result, Microsoft was at work and the second version of IE was released in October 1995 and began to fill in the blank for the missing elements like support for cookies, SSL, JavaScript, and HTML 3. It provided integrated email and newsgroup clients, as did Navigator. And it could import bookmarks from Netscape’s browser for the first time.

As for IE 1.0, its follow-up was not well received. Bill Gates took his troop to the local bar and after a few drinks, he stated that "...[IE] was the worst piece of software ever shipped". His reaction rose some angry eyebrows in the gallery -- after all, it was Bill Gates's fault - he failed to recognize the importance of the internet back in the early 90s. The troop returned to their work, and while maintaining I.E 2.0 for Windows NT, Mac, and Unix, they began plotting a sinister scheme to take over cyberspace.

IE 3.0 was considered a huge leap forward in term of innovation for the web

Reardon decided that the next version of Microsoft Windows code-named "Memphis" and tentatively named "Windows 97", would integrate Internet Explorer technology at its core. I.E would not be a standalone application, instead, it would be the DNA of Windows, penetrating in a seamless way every level of the operating system; from the shell up to the UX. While chief competitors like Netscape allowed browsing the web, Internet Explorer would do better, it would allow the end-user to browse the web and Windows's operating system files, folders, and network as well.

So, besides being free of charge for all users, Internet Explorer would be rooted deep down to the core of Windows -- that it would be impossible to pull off or uninstall it to make room for another competitor without disturbing the normal functioning of the operating system. This would have a great negative repercussion on Microsoft during the Antitrust Trial in 1998;

And the result paid off, Internet Explorer 3.0 was a significant upgrade to the previous version. Gone is the Windows flag logo and replaced by the ubiquitous and famous, classic "e" logo that would last until Windows Internet Explorer 11. With this, Internet Explorer 3.0 was a huge leap forward in terms of innovations for then the nascent World Wide Web. It supported Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), HTML frames, Active X controls, Java applets, and Netscape’s NPAPI plug-in technologies. It included bundled Internet Mail and News (the predecessors to Outlook Express) and NetMeeting and Comic Chat clients, and integrated versions of Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, and the Windows Address Book.

By 1997, I.E's market share reached 38 percent while Netscape struggled down to 58 percent. And Microsoft finally was on track to beat its competitors.

That same year, while Microsoft was in the midst of Beta testing the next iteration of Windows 97, which due to Antitrust Trial, was delayed for the summer of 1998 and renamed Windows 98, the company released the biggest update to its now venerable Internet Explorer. With the fourth version on track to hit not only, Windows 95 and NT 4.0, I.E 4.0 embarrassed - in fact- celebrated literally Windows 98 whose shell featured a web-like one-click object when users mouse over and click on desktop's folders or settings. I.E implementation featured the Channel Bar, which is considered the ancestor of the Sidebar from the Longhorn era. (In fact, the Sidebar was the result of Microsoft Research's paperwork about information awareness -- published in the Summer of 2000 - but that's another story)

As a result, I.E 4.0 was way better than Netscape on many levels. Jim Clark's company was bleeding and requested help from the Department of Justice to probe Microsoft's unfair practices, which would lead us to the biggest trial of the end of the 20th century. But the deed was done, even if Netscape notched some victories during the trial, the company would never recover as IE dominated the market for the years ahead. Thomas Reardon expressed disillusionment and decided to leave the company in 2000.

Internet Explorer dominated the market share at the dawn of the 21st century reaching a peak of 91 percent in 2002/03. With no competitor in sight, Internet Explorer 6.0 was the longest-serving web browser, released in 2001 alongside Windows XP, proved successful indeed but prone to vulnerabilities, until Microsoft decided to release the seventh version of IE in 2006.

Sofiane M. MEROUANI