Microsoft celebrates silver jubilee

Bill gates preaches software evangelism

Microsoft, the worlds largest software company, has celebrated its 25th birthday in the company's home town of Seattle.

The celebration comes as Microsoft is fighting a judicial order to be broken up for abusing its dominant market position.

We knew that there was going to be a large software industry

Bill Gates

An estimated 20,000 employees gathered at the Safeco Field baseball stadium where they were treated to a rock concert from the band Cheap Trick.

The comedian Sinbad also treated them to his routine, but the suprise of the day was when the company's Chief Executive Officer, Steve Ballmer, poped out of the 25th birthday cake.

The 25th birthday cake produced CEO Steve Ballmer

The company's chairman, Bill Gates, gave employees a pep talk highlighting the company's achievements, drawing a standing ovation from them.

"We knew that there was going to be a large software industry, and we evangelised to make that happen," Mr Gates said.

He went on to encourage his employees to continue to work with others outside the organisation.

Employees gave Gates a standing ovation

"Now you have to woo software developers to our new dot.net platform... Our developers have been the key at every juncture in the history of this company," he said.

Gates showed off the his first software programme he wrote, Basic, and its related computer game, where cars dodged donkeys along an obstacle course.

The company started off in Albuquerque, New Mexico where Bill Gates and co-founder Paul Allen were then working on software for minicomputers.

They later moved it to their native Pacific Northwest city of Seattle.

In June this year, District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson said that Microsoft should be split in two as its sentence for abusing its dominant position in the personal computer operating system market.