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A Brief History of Microsoft on the Web: Reflections on microsoft.com from Birth to 'Middle Age' - By Dave Kramer

In the beginning, www.microsoft.com was just one computer tucked under a table at the end of a long hallway. It was designed to test Microsoft's first 32-bit Windows implementation of TCP/IP, the software plumbing in Windows that enables Internet communications.

Mark Ingalls with the first rack of microsoft.com Internet servers.Microsoft legend says that this machine once lived under the desk of the site's first official administrator, Mark Ingalls, but like most legends that's only half true. A staging server for microsoft.com was actually housed beneath his desk, and it was relocated because too often Ingalls reached down and turned off the wrong machine by mistake.

Today, microsoft.com is the fourth-largest Web site (per Media Metrix), powered by in