Microsoft: THE COMPANY The thought of forming a company which supplies its customers with software, was a great idea--especially coming from a college dropout. Bill Gates, along with high-school friend Paul Allen, formed a software company in 1975. From the beginning, Microsoft had a tremendous potential to become a very successful corporation. Beginning with a revenue of sixteen thousand dollars, and three employees, Microsoft developed into a huge "money making machine." In its twenty-five years of existence, Microsoft has developed a very powerful and dominating corporation--but is not necessarily considered a monopoly. William Henry Gates III was born in Seattle, Washington