DESKTOP APPLICATIONS AND OTHER PRODUCTS 25
             APPLICATIONS AND CONTENT PRODUCT GROUP 32
             Historians categorize blocks of time with the discovery of certain raw
             materials that humans utilized. The Bronze Age and the Iron Age were
             two periods in human history that proved through the discovery of
             artifacts that humans learned to harness these raw materials
             ingeniously. The Industrial Revolution of the late nineteenth century
             brought the discoveries of the Bronze and Iron Ages to new heights, and
             the advent of the locomotive, automobiles, cargo ships and airplanes
             were the most evident by-products of such raw materials. Use of these
             by-products from the earth=s raw materials dramatically changed the
             world of business and trade. With the subsequent invention of wire
             communications (i.e., tapping out Morse code and speaking over
             telephone lines), business and trade grew exponentially. Wireless
             communications via the inventions of radio, television, and motion
             pictures contributed greatly to the advances of the Industrial
             The need to find better ways of doing business to keep the marketplace
             fresh and innovative has driven the human race toward the brink of a
             new eraCthe Information Age. Unlike more tangible qualities of prior
             ages, the Information Age offers less defined qualities. At the heart
             of this new age is the advent of the personal home computer. Pumping
             life into this otherwise material home appliance is software that
             incorporates the necessary commands to access information stored within
             the computer=s memory. The company that offered the world its first
             software manufacturing company was Microsoft Corporation (MSFT on the
             NASDAQ exchange). At the helm of this young, innovative company are
             William Gates and Paul Allen, a pair of former high school chums who
             envisioned a world of home computer technology years before such a
             dream became even remotely poss...