PowerPoint Co-Creator Has Passed

Dennis Austin, the co-creator and key software developer of Microsoft PowerPoint, has passed away at age 76.

“Dennis R. Austin was the principal software developer for PowerPoint from 1985 to 1996, particularly its versions for Apple Macintosh computers,” the description accompanying the Computer History Museum’s oral history explains. “Following exposure to the graphical user interface and broader graphical approach to computing at Xerox PARC, he became a software developer for Gavilan Computer, before joining Forethought, Inc. in late 1984. At Forethought, Robert Gaskins launched an effort to develop graphical presentation software which became PowerPoint, for which Gaskins worked as architect. Austin served as the principal developer for PowerPoint, contributing to its design and implementation. Tom Rudkin joined the PowerPoint project and made significant contributions to the programming with Austin. After Microsoft acquired Forethought in 1987, Austin continued as a principal developer for PowerPoint [until] 1996.”

PowerPoint inventor Robert Gaskins penned an exhaustive history of the creation of PowerPoint called Sweating Bullets: Notes about Inventing PowerPoint. I just purchased and started reading it, but it’s only $2.99 USD in Kindle form. And while a full telling of this history will almost certainly make its way into this series’ broader narrative, it’s worth highlighting a few details of which many are likely unaware.

For starters, PowerPoint was originally called Presenter for obvious reasons, and it came about when Forethought hired Robert Gaskins to create a new graphical (GUI) application for the Mac in 1984. Within a month, he had described what later became PowerPoint—“presentation graphics for overhead projection”—an app that would be aimed at “people who make presentations to others” and would require a “graphics PC.” It would create slide presentations, talking papers, and handouts “all from one master file,” and would provide outline aids and a variety of slide types.

After being selected by Gaskins, him and Austin spent about a year further defining PowerPoint—er, Presenter—and by the time the first specification document was ready, they had decided to make a version for Microsoft Windows 1.0 as well. Austin wrote the software code for the original version of the product for the Mac by himself until mid-1996 when a second developer, Thomas Rudkin, came on board. The plan was to “develop first for Mac” because the GUI was already available and then “port the result to Windows,” with the assumption that that platform would catch up by “Summer 87.”

Forethought is notable for a few reasons, among them that it was Apple’s first investment, in January 1987, and Microsoft’s first major corporate acquisition, in April 1987, just one week after the firm shipped PowerPoint 1.0 for Mac. Interestingly, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates didn’t see the appeal of this software—he felt presentations could be a feature of Word—but acolyte Jeff Raikes convinced him otherwise, and Microsoft spent $14 million on the acquisition.

Forethought’s entire team joined Microsoft, which created a new Graphics business unit in its Applications division to accommodate this new type of application. Microsoft shipped PowerPoint 2.0 for Mac in mid-1988, and then PowerPoint 3.0 for Windows and Mac in 1992. During this time, Microsoft created the first version of its Office productivity suite, for the Mac, which bundled Word, Excel, and PowerPoint initially.

One of the more interesting things to come out of PowerPoint and Office was a push in the 1990s to consolidate the user interfaces of each application to match the others as closely as possible, with the theory being that it would make it easier for users to switch between them. But this belief, while logical enough, was not based on any research or testing, and it was later disproven. Regardless, the Office applications share similar UIs to this day, despite the inherent differences in each tool.

Likewise, PowerPoint has had as many detracts as fans, seemingly, with people like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs infamously banning the software in their companies. (Jobs, in his typical hypocritical custom, later pushed Apple to create its own presentation software.) It has been the butt of jokes in everything from cartoons to Saturday Night Live.

As for Austin, he stuck with Microsoft and led PowerPoint development until he retired in 1996.

If you’re interested in the history of PowerPoint, I recommend the previously-mentioned book, Robert Gaskin’s incredible website, which contains a rich archive of PowerPoint-related information, and the Computer History Museum’s video interview, Oral History of Dennis R. Austin.