It was reported that PowerPoint co-creator Dennis Austin passed away on September 1st at his home in Los Altos, California. washington post. His son, Michael Austin, said he had lung cancer that had spread to his brain. post. He was 76 years old.
Austin studied engineering at several universities, including MIT and the University of California, Santa Barbara, before working as a software developer and eventually joining the software company Forethought, where he co-developed PowerPoint. The company released his software in 1987, and just a few months later he was acquired by Microsoft.Austin He served as the main developer of PowerPoint From 1985 to 1996 when he retired.
washington post Michael Gaskins, another co-creator of PowerPoint, writes in his book: Sweating Bullets: Notes on the Invention of PowerPoint Austin said he “came up with at least half of the major design ideas,” adding that if he hadn’t designed the software, “no one would have ever heard of it.”
Despite PowerPoint’s 36-year history as the most popular software for presentations, it has its detractors. Jeff Bezos once said “We have outlawed PowerPoint presentations at Amazon,” he said, calling the move “probably the smartest move we’ve ever made.” Quoted by Steve Jobs in Walter Isaacson Recruitment There’s a quote in Biography that says, “People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.”
atlantic We published an article about “The 2003 PowerPoint Panic states that 20 years ago, people thought PowerPoint “corroded the mind, degraded communication, and wasted time.” Still, PowerPoint has its fans. talking heads Lead singer David Byrne loved the song, not for its original purpose, but On its potential as an artistic tool.
This software remains an important part of Microsoft’s suite of office tools to this day. Recently, the company started adding AI tools to PowerPoint with Copilot, a type of modern Clippy AI assistant for Microsoft 365. You’ll be asked to create a presentation, generate images, and adjust the tone and format of the text in your presentation.