Can you believe it, PowerPoint is 30 years old?
Originally called ‘Presenter’, in 1987 it was renamed to ‘PowerPoint’ by Robert Gaskins. Later in 1987, Microsoft bought the software out of petty cash (i.e. $14 million). 22 May 1990 was the first release of Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows, the birthday that Redmond officially recognizes.
In that time, we’ve gone from this:
To this
With versions for tiny screens on iPhone, Android and Windows phones and tablets plus Windows and Mac.
PowerPoint gone mad
On the other hand, the enhanced features of PowerPoint have also given us monster slides like this famous effort.
It’s fashionable to hate PowerPoint but the problem isn’t the software, it’s the people who use it. Blaming PowerPoint for bad presentations is like blaming the printing press for awful books.
