Dennis Austin, one of the co-creators of PowerPoint software, a tool still widely used by millions worldwide, has passed away in the United States.
At the age of 76, Austin succumbed to lung cancer that had metastasized to his brain, as reported by The Washington Post.
PowerPoint, introduced in 1987 by software firm Forethought, represented a digital evolution from overhead projectors, revolutionizing the process of creating slides.
Forethought released the software in 1987, and just a few months later, Microsoft acquired the company for $14 million. By 1993, PowerPoint had generated over $100 million in sales, becoming an integral part of Microsoft’s suite of Office products, including Word.
Dennis Austin served as PowerPoint’s primary developer from 1985 to 1996 when he retired. In his unpublished history of the software’s development, Austin highlighted the need to make PowerPoint user-friendly, especially for those not well-versed in graphics design. He employed a “direct-manipulation interface,” ensuring that the editing process resembled the final product, not just individual slides.
Austin collaborated closely with Robert Gaskins, the Forethought executive who conceived the software. Gaskins credited Austin with at least half of the major design ideas and praised him for the software’s fluid performance and polished finish.
Today, PowerPoint is employed to create over 30 million presentations daily.
Born on May 28, 1947, in Pittsburgh, Dennis Austin studied engineering at the University of Virginia. In 1984, after facing layoffs at a startup focused on battery-powered laptops, he joined Forethought, founded by two former Apple employees. Following Microsoft’s acquisition of Forethought, Austin continued to lead PowerPoint’s development until his retirement in 1996.
