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Tech history in photos: Software giants of the 1970s

By · April 10, 2014, 1:58 PM PST · connerforrest

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  • Microsoft CEO and cofounder Bill Gates

    The 1970s are widely regarded as the decade that software companies started to come into their own. Here are the major people and personalities behind the growth of the software industry.

    This first photo features Bill Gates, who co-founded Microsoft with Paul Allen. He is, arguably, the most well-known founder of a software company of all time.

  • Ed Yourdon, founder of Yourdon, Inc.

    Yourdon was a pioneer of the software engineering methodology and a proponent of structured analysis. He is also known as a co-developer of object-oriented analysis/design.

    Image: Ed Yourdon

  • Gary Kildall, founder of Digital Research

    Kildall is known as the creator of the CP/M operating system. IBM made an unsuccessful attempt at licensing CP/M for the IBM PC.

    Image: Stewart Cheifet/the Computer Chronicles

  • VisiCalc founders Daniel Bricklin and Robert Frankston

    VisiCalc is often regarded as the first spreadsheet program, originally released for the Apple II. VisiCalc was a big part of the personal computer becoming a business tool.

    Image: VisiCorp

  • Oracle founders Larry Ellison (pictured), Bob Miner, and Ed Oates

    Ellison, Miner, and Oates founded Software Development Laboratories in 1977, which later became Oracle. Today, the company is known as a leader in ERP and CRM software.

    Image: James Martin/CNET

  • SAP founders in 1988: Klaus Tschira, Hans-Werner Hector, Dietmar Hopp, Hasso Plattner (from left to right)

    SAP was founded as a private partnership in June of 1972. The company began by creating enterprise software for payroll and accounting.

    Image: SAP AG

  • Anthony James Barr, developer of the SAS language

    Barr founded the Statistical Analysis System in the late 1960s. The SAS Institute was incorporated by Barr and Jim Goodnight in the 1970S.

    Image: Julian Horwich

  • Apple II DOS creator Paul Laughton

    In 1978, Laughton was working for Shepardson Microsystems and was contracted to build Apple's first DOS for the Apple II.

    Image: Paul Laughton

  • Richard Lawson of Lawson Software

    Richard Lawson founded Lawson Software in 1975 with his brother Bill and John Cerullo. The company began providing custom mainframe software for IBM and went public in 2001.

    Image: Purdue University

  • Xerox PARC lab team

    Bob Taylor and the PARC team are responsible for tech innovations such as graphical user interface (GUI) and Ethernet.

    Image: PARC/Xerox

Microsoft CEO and cofounder Bill Gates

The 1970s are widely regarded as the decade that software companies started to come into their own. Here are the major people and personalities behind the growth of the software industry.

This first photo features Bill Gates, who co-founded Microsoft with Paul Allen. He is, arguably, the most well-known founder of a software company of all time.

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By Conner Forrest

Conner Forrest is an analyst for 451 Research. He was formerly a Senior Editor for TechRepublic.

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