PowerPoint inventor dies Jobs and other business executives once disliked PPT
(Original title: PowerPoint inventor dies, he shaped the way information communication in modern society)
Dennis Austin came up with at least half of the main design ideas and took full credit for PowerPoint's smooth performance and flawless finish. "If Dennis wasn't the one who designed PowerPoint, no one would have heard of it."
· "It's easy to laugh at its [PowerPoint] corporate nature, but the real story is its participatory and democratic nature. High school students use it, rabbis (wise men of Judaism) use it, and people even use it for wedding toasts. ”
Dennis Austin, inventor of PowerPoint Image credit: Emily Austin
On September 1, local time, Dennis Austin, the inventor of PowerPoint, died at his home in Los Altos, California, at the age of 76.
According to the Washington Post on September 8, Austin's son Michael Austin revealed that the cause of death was lung cancer metastasizing to the brain.
PowerPoint has played an important role in shaping the way information is communicated in modern society and has become synonymous with the world of work. Its astonishing popularity, especially the ease with which it is to create boring and endless presentations, makes it not only a tool that everyone can live without, but also a rare cross-cultural symbol. No matter what country it is in, PowerPoint is easy to be ridiculed and entertained in cultural and artistic works. It also has a well-known acronym: PPT.
Everyone can make slides
In 1987, PowerPoint was released as the digital successor to the projector, by software company Forethought. Previously, making slides was a labor-intensive task, often assigned to the design department or outsourced. PowerPoint allows anyone with computer access to make slideshows with just mouse clicks and rearranging information.
As a software engineer, Austin worked with Robert Gaskins, the Forethought executive who conceived the software, to design PowerPoint to be easy to use.
"Our users are familiar with computers, but may not be familiar with graphics software." Austin wrote in an unpublished article about the history of PowerPoint development. He uses a "direct interface" to make "what you're editing look exactly like the final product."
Originally called Presenter, PowerPoint initially targeted Apple Macintosh computers with a graphical interface, providing users with the ability to combine graphics, clip art, and multiple fonts. The goal, Austin writes, is to "create presentations, not just slides." ”
In his book The Sweating Bullet: Notes on Inventing the PowerPoint, Gaskins writes that "Dennis came up with at least half of the main design ideas" and had full credit for smooth performance and flawless finishing. "If Dennis wasn't the one who designed PowerPoint, no one would have heard of it." Gaskins added.
A few months after PowerPoint launched, Microsoft acquired Forethought for $14 million. Microsoft founder Bill Gates was skeptical at first, but eventually changed his mind. The project was so huge that Microsoft created a new business unit.
Microsoft eventually added PowerPoint to the Office suite of programs, which was released on the Windows operating system in 1990. By 1993, PowerPoint had more than $100 million in sales. Today, users worldwide use PowerPoint to create more than 30 million presentations every day.
Users worldwide now use PowerPoint to create more than 30 million presentations every day
PowerPoint was disliked by Jobs
But as it became an important tool in the workplace, PowerPoint was ridiculed by business executives, business school professors and military officers.
"I hate the way people use slides without thinking." According to Jobs' biography by Walter Isaacson, Apple founder Steve Jobs said, "People face problems by creating presentations. But I want them to get involved and discuss issues on the table, rather than showing a bunch of slides. People who know what they're talking about don't need PowerPoint. ”
Jobs banned the company from using PowerPoint (but Apple developed its own presentation software). Amazon founder Jeff Bezos did the same, and asked executives to write memos to share before the meeting.
At the Pentagon, PowerPoint has been criticized. "PowerPoint makes us stupid." According to The New York Times, former U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said at a military conference in 2010, "We met the enemy, and he is PowerPoint." ”
"It's dangerous because it creates an illusion of understanding and control." U.S. Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster McMaster) told reporters.
In 2003, NASA's committee investigating the disintegration of the Space Shuttle Columbia found that a PowerPoint slide used "sloppy" and "vague quantitative words" to mask the spacecraft's "life-threatening" safety concerns. "The committee believes that the widespread use of PowerPoint briefing slides instead of technical papers indicates a problem with NASA's approach to technical communication," the report said. ”
Austin and Gaskins agreed with the complaints, but argued that they were unfairly targeting the software, not the lazy, bad people who used it to make lazy, bad presentations. "It's like a printing press." Austin told the Wall Street Journal in 2007, "It can print all kinds of junk. ”
PowerPoint
"The real story is participatory and democratic"
Austin was born on May 28, 1947 in Pittsburgh, USA, the father of an executive association, the mother of a typist, and later a housewife.
While studying engineering at the University of Virginia, Austin used a room-sized computer on which students programmed them, generated punch cards, and then entered them by specially trained computer operators. After running the program overnight, the students returned the next day to check the output.
After graduating in 1969, Austin pursued graduate studies at Arizona State University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of California, Santa Barbara. Subsequently, he worked for companies such as General Electric and Honeywell International.
In 1984, Austin was hired by Forethought, a company founded by two former Apple employees.
After Microsoft's acquisition of Forethought, Austin continued to lead the development of PowerPoint until his retirement in 1996.
Austin friends and family said he never minded jokes about PowerPoint. He was also well aware that the software he invented was used for presentations far beyond expectations, not only as a marriage proposal, but even as a prop in a stand-up comedy show.
In 2005, Austin attended an event at the University of California, Berkeley, when David Byrne, the frontman of the rock band Talking Heads, gave a PowerPoint presentation demonstrating the use of the software to create art.
"PowerPoint is the Rodney Dangerfield of software: it's not respected." Ken Goldberg, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said the event's organizer. Denzerfield is an American stand-up comedian known for his self-deprecating playful humor with the famous slogan "I get no respect!" ”。
"It's easy to laugh at its [PowerPoint] corporate nature, but the real story is its participatory and democratic nature. High school students use it, rabbis (wise men of Judaism) use it, and people even use it for wedding toasts. Goldberg said.