Windows 95 Released

 

On August 24, 1995, kicking off one of the most significant product launches in technology history, Microsoft released the highly anticipated Windows 95. Thanks to this product campaign, Windows 95's sales exceeded all predictions. More than one million copies will be sold in the first four days of its release. Windows 95, the first operating system in the 9x family, is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. 

Strangely, on August 24, 1993, two years before, Apple lost a copyright infringement suit against Microsoft. Perhaps the most famous lawsuit in technology history is decided for Microsoft. Apple claimed that Microsoft’s Windows violated their copyrights on the "visual displays" of the Macintosh. The judge in the case ruled that most of the claims were covered by a 1985 licensing agreement. Other claims were not violations of copyright due to the "merger doctrine", which states that ideas can not be copyrighted. This paved the way for Microsoft to develop Windows 95, which imitated the Macintosh even more so than previous versions of Windows.