# Talk:History of Microsoft

This is a request from Japanese Wikipedia contributors. There is no reliable evidence to show that April 4, 1975 is the date Microsoft was founded, according to a Japanese book published by Keio University. It would be much appreciated if any English contributors could verify the exact date with reliable sources. Here is the summarized translation of the Japanese source.
April 1975 is the month Paul Allen was employed by Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems. However, there is no evidence to show that Microsoft was founded at the same time. Gates and Allen officially signed a written business partnership on February 3, 1977. Before this formal agreement, the two worked on the business and product development on an oral agreement basis so that no reliable source supports the date. Moreover, the name of Micro-Soft was invented in the summer of 1975. So, "Micro-Soft" cannot be founded prior to the summer. Today, Both Gates and Allen have talked to many reliable sources that Microsoft was founded on April 4, 1975. However, their interview comments saying April 4 cannot be found before 2005. Therefore, the author of the book published by Keio University casts a significant doubt that Gates and Allen invented a 30-year anniversary.
Then, one of Japanese Wikipedia contributors further researched to find other sources. Author = Janice Jorgensen, Publisher = St. James Press, Date =1994, Title = Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands: Durable goods, Page = 342, Quote = "on April 4, 1975, Gates and Allen officially established Microsoft as a business partnership." This document, however, does not include any interview comment, and does not show any reason or source for the date April 4. So far, there seems no reliable information on what happened and was agreed on April 4.
Could anyone show any reliable source on the date when Microsoft was founded that is published before 1980? Thank you.
--by ProfessorPine (talk) 01:09, 16 February 2019 (UTC) --Modified by Ilrtropc (talk) 01:43, 18 February 2019 (UTC)