Dennis Austin, co-creator of PowerPoint software, dies

Dennis Austin, one of the co-creators of Microsoft PowerPoint software, has died at the age of 76.

Dennis Austin, along with Robert Gaskins, developed Microsoft PowerPoint software and introduced it in 1987.

• Dennis Austin was battling lung cancer for a long time. In 1984, Dennis Austin was hired by Forethought after being laid off from his job at a battery-powered laptop start-up.
• The foundation of Forethought was laid by two former Apple employees. Austin played a key role in the creation of PowerPoint after Microsoft acquired Forethought in 1987. Dennis Austin retired from Microsoft in 1996.
• According to a report, currently 30 million i.e. 3 crore presentations are prepared through PowerPoint every day.

Dennis Austin:

• Dennis R. Austin was born on May 28, 1947 in Pittsburgh (USA). He studied engineering at the University of Virginia.
• Austin was the lead software developer of PowerPoint from 1985 to 1996, focusing on versions for Apple Macintosh computers.
• Austin began his career in the computer division of General Electric in Arizona, then worked at Honeywell in Massachusetts and Burroughs in California.
• In late 1984, Forethought, Inc. Before joining Gavilan Computer, he became a software developer.
• At Forethought, Robert Gaskins initiated the development of graphical presentation software that later became PowerPoint, with Austin as the lead developer.
• Tom Rudkin joined the PowerPoint project and made significant programming contributions along with Austin.
• By 1993, Microsoft's earnings from PowerPoint had exceeded $100 million.
• Microsoft later integrated PowerPoint with its Office suite. Austin contributed significantly to the early development of PowerPoint between 1985–96.
• Making PowerPoint easier to operate was Austin's goal as a software engineer during his tenure. PowerPoint was created to improve presentations and is still used for presentations today.

Austin's book:

• ‘Sweating Bullets: Notes about Inventing PowerPoint’ was published in 2012.