3.1 Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates (Gates) and his friend Paul Allen in April 1975 at Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA.

Microsoft was founded to develop a programming language, Altair BASIC, an improved version of BASIC,10 for the Altair 8800, the first commercial microcomputer or personal computer (PC)11 from Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS).12 The company gave MITS distribution rights for the language, but retained the ownership rights. In 1977, Microsoft started selling its version of FORTRAN13 for CP/M14 based computers. The next year, the company introduced its version of COBOL15 for PCs. By the end of the 1970s, the company had emerged as the leader in microcomputer programming languages. In 1980, IBM16 awarded a contract to Microsoft for providing an operating system for the PC that IBM planned to launch.

A significant factor in Microsoft's success was its public image. Right from the beginning, Microsoft laid a lot of emphasis on PR. In 1981, when MS-DOS was launched, the company first felt the need to build the Microsoft brand. In September 1982, for the first time, Microsoft hired a PR professional - Pam Edstrom (Edstrom) from Tektronix. To oversee PR, the company also hired C. Rowland Hanson (Hanson), a marketing executive from Neutrogena Corporation, as its first Vice-President of corporate communications in 1983.

Microsoft's PR initiatives proved to be an important factor in the success of many of its product launches. In 1995, Microsoft launched Windows 95. Although there were no advertisements to promote the operating system till August 24, 1995, according to the Wall Street Journal, 3,000 headlines, 6,852 stories, and more than three million words were devoted to Windows 95 from July 1, 2005, to August 24, 1995. More than one million copies of Windows 95 were sold even before advertising for the product started. Analysts attributed some of the success of the product to the company's PR efforts..

Although Microsoft used PR very effectively to create a buzz about the company and its products, some of its PR campaigns were not successful. On May 06, 1998, Microsoft organized a rally in New York City as part of its PR campaign to prevent the Department of Justice and several state Attorney Generals from filing suits to restrict the release of Windows 98.

Q. As a newly appointed Public Relations (PR) officer at Microsoft, critically outline a well thought out plan that you can effectively put in place to build the Microsoft Brand.