Inventor: Bill Gates

Windows has become the standard that most computers operate on, enabling information to be easily transferred among thousands of people without conflicts.     
Bill Gates had realized how important and profitable a successful graphical user interface (GUI) could be, and announced in 1983 that Microsoft would create one, promising it in 1984. Two years after it was promised, Windows 1.0 was first released on November 20, 1985. It was considered to be extremely slow, crude, and buggy, and was threatened by lawsuits from Apple computers. They claimed that Microsoft infringed on Apple patents and copyrights, and took trade secrets from Apple. A contract was developed between Apple and Microsoft to license Apple features for use in Microsoft products.
The Windows OS did not come into wide use until another program was released, Aldus PageMaker 1.0. PageMaker was the first WYSIWYG desktop publishing program available, and ran on Windows.  Later that year, Microsoft released Excel, to create spreadsheets on the computer. Those programs, along with Microsoft Word and Corel, helped to popularize Windows, but the OS still needed to be improved greatly. Windows 2.0 was released in 1987, and has been the dominate OS ever since.
Windows has become the standard for operating systems today. It has provided compatibility of programs between millions of computers, and gives a common look to all computers. Had Windows not been developed, communication would be greatly decreased, as would productivity, as different computers would have different file formats that were incompatible with each other, inhibiting file sharing.

*Pictures from Microsoft Electronic Encarta Encyclopedia Edition 2002

Sources:
About Inc. Getting the Bug Out of Windows with Bill Gates Part 2. 11 October 2003. <http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa080499a.htm>

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