In the early days, microsoft.com was just one computer tucked under a table at the end of a long hallway. It was designed to test Microsoft’s first 32-bit Windows implementation of TCP/IP, the software plumbing in Windows that enables Internet communications.
Microsoft legend says that this machine once lived under the desk of the site’s first official administrator, Mark Ingalls, but like most legends that’s only half true. A staging server for Microsoft.com was actually housed beneath his desk, and it was relocated because too often Ingalls reached down and turned off the wrong machine by mistake.
The first page however should rise some eyebrows, even though this probably was considered decent design 13 years ago…
And to see how Apple was doing at the same time check out this Flikr photoset.
Amazing isn’t it how the web, networks, design and programming has developed in such short time (compared to other forms of media).
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