Dennis Austin, software developer who created PowerPoint, dies at 76 – The Washington Post
Powerpoint was first released in 1987, by Forethought, which was then later bought by Microsoft.
It was not the first “presentation graphics” software tool, though. Harvard Graphics was released in 1986 by Software Publishing Corporation. HG was conceived by Mario Chaves who also managed the development of HG.
There was also earlier software used for creating slides, such as early word processors. The output was often transferred to overhead transparencies or 35 mm slides as video projectors did not exist at the time.
Disclosure – I used to work for both Software Publishing Corporation (1982-1989), and later for Microsoft Corporation (during the 1990s).
I found this article with this incorrect information:
For integrated software manufacturers of this era, think of Microsoft, Lotus Development, and MicroPro International. “Software publishers” did everything that the integrated manufacturers did, except write the code. Rather, they entered into contracts on a royalty basis with those who did write programs. Software publishers ran the gamut from stand-alone companies like Personal Software Inc. and the aptly named Software Publishing Inc., to computer makers like Apple, who published software written by others under their own label. Code authors ranged from individual sole proprietorships to “author shops,” partnerships between two or more programmers in an LLP or a small company
Slide Logic: The Emergence of Presentation Software and the Prehistory of PowerPoint – CHM (computerhistory.org)
FACT: Software Publishing’s first products were developed in-house but the company at that time, thought it would be publishing others’ works, just as a book publisher does. But that is NOT the model SPC adopted. Instead, virtually all software was developed in house by SPC R&D teams of software developers.
SPC Products developed entirely in-house from 1980 to the time I left in 1989:
- PFS File
- PFS Report
- PFS Graph
- PFS Write (the spell check code, and only that code, was bought from 3 outside developers who worked as contractors at SPC)
- PFS Access
- PFS First Choice
- PFS First Publisher
- PFS Plan
- PFS Professional File
- PFS Professional Write
- PFS Professional Plan
- (Later versions of the Professional series dropped the PFS name)
- Harvard Graphics
- Harvard Total Project Manager was acquired through purchase of a company, and then development continued in house.
- IBM Assistant series was developed by SPC and sold by IBM
- SPC also developed an MCI Access package, a special version of PFS Access, for MCI Mail.
- In the early 1990s, after I had left, SPC went onto develop other software products with which I am not familiar.
Products ran on the Apple ][ line, Mac and DOS-based computers, and IBM PS/2, and later some on Windows.
In 1991, SPC made a strategic decision to sell the PFS product lines and focus exclusively on high end Harvard products, which basically turned the company into a one product company. Second, Microsoft Windows 3 was introduced (the first version of Windows to achieve success), and SPC was not prepared to ship products for Windows, and competitors rapidly took market share as the DOS market diminished. These strategic errors eventually led to the sale of the company and the end of Software Publishing Corporation.
I contacted the Computer History Musuem and they will be updating the original article posting with a corrected description.
