These are some of the things that not many people would know about Windows.

It is not a
household knowledge. But, having knowledge of these would let you appreciate Windows in a
whole new way. The development of Windows started a whole new era in the computing
industry.

1. Windows was first called as interface manager when it was first strategized. It was based off
of Apple’s Mac OS. Windows has been around for 21 years now. Windows 1.0 hit the shelves in
November of 1985. It is believed that Bill Gates got the idea of Windows OS from Steve Jobs.
2. The Windows operating system has 50 million lines of code (a line averages 60 characters)
and grows 20% with every release. It’s put together by 7,200 people, comes in 34 languages and
has to support 190,000 devices–different models of digital cameras, printers, handhelds and so
on.”
3. There were 103 million worldwide in 2005, and the growth rate seems to be around 10 to 15
percent per year. Windows operating system claims to have a market share between 35% to
40%. Wow, there are 400 million Windows users.
4. There are 250,000 to 300,000 applications for Windows
5. Although apple claims 1 million conversions from Windows to Mac, 85% of the computers
worldwide run on Windows.
6. If you look at the list of viruses that are around, you should be able to see that most of the
viruses are targeting Windows or any other Microsoft application. Windows comes under a lot
of attack by people who exploit the security flaws in Windows. Vista which is being launched
early next year is expected to set a high bar in security.
7. These are the canceled versions of Windows:
# 1996 May 3 – Windows Nashville (windows 96)
# 1997-1998 – Cairo (a “true object-oriented OS”) planned after Windows NT; if released would
be similar to DesktopX (but at a lower level)
# 1999 December – Windows Neptune (Windows Neptune is a version of Microsoft windows
that was planned to be the home consumer edition of windows…) was sent out to beta testers
but was never released, Exception Handler: No article summary found. Should have been
successor to Windows 2000.
8. The Blue Screen of Death (sometimes called “bluescreen”, “stop error” or just “BSoD”) is a
popular name for the screen displayed by Microsoft’s Windows operating system when it
cannot or is in danger of being unable to recover from a system error. The term blue screen of
death was coined by Erik Noyes while he worked for Charles Schwab and Co., Inc.’s technical
support for the Electronic Service Delivery division in early 1991. Erik coined this phrase and
shared it with customers and his co-workers. Soon, it became a standard phrase in Windows
terminology.
9. Microsoft has a dubious record of having the most number of crashes. It is believed that there
are around 25 million crashes everyday.
10. There are reports that 60% of the Vista code is being rewritten due to an internal error at
Microsoft.

Seven Stunning Facts About Microsoft’s Profits

Each time Microsoft announces quarterly results, The VAR Guy takes
a look to see how the company’s profits stack up against the
competition. If you think open source and software as a service will
destroy Microsoft, look at this stunning fact: It takes Microsoft only
10 hours to exceed the quarterly profits of Red Hat. Skeptical?
Check out the math, and six other jaw-dropping facts about
Microsoft’s profits.

First, let’s look at Microsoft’s latest quarterly profit of $4.707

billion. Using that figure, you can determine that Microsoft’s daily
net income is about $52 million. That’s $52 million in pure profit
every 24 hours. Do some quick math and you’ll learn it takes
Microsoft only about…

• Three hours to exceed Salesforce.com’s quarterly net income of $6.5

million
• Ten hours to exceed Red Hat’s quarterly net income of $20.3 million
• Three-and-a-half days to exceed Harley Davidson’s quarterly net
income of $186.1 million
• Ten days to exceed Target Stores’ quarterly net income of $483 million
• Thirty days to exceed Apple’s quarterly net income of $1.58 billion
• Thirty-three days to exceed PepsiCo’s quarterly net income of $1.7
billion
• Seventy-six days to exceed IBM’s quarterly net income of $3.95 billion