Paul Allen is an American inventor, computer programmer, investor and philanthropist, best known as the co-founder, with Bill Gates, of Microsoft Corporation. He is the founder and chairman of Vulcan Inc., which manages his various business and philanthropic efforts. Hismemoir Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft was released on April 19, 2011.
He came up with the original name of "Micro-Soft," as recounted in a 1995 Fortune magazine article. In 1980, after promising to deliver IBM a Disk Operating System (DOS) they had not yet developed for the Intel 8088-based IBM PC, Allen spearheaded a deal for Microsoft to purchase a Quick and Dirty Operating System (QDOS) written by Tim Paterson who, at the time, was employed at Seattle Computer Products. As a result of this transaction, Microsoft was able to secure a contract to supply the DOS that would eventually run on IBM's PC line. This contract with IBM was the watershed in Microsoft history that led to Allen and Gates' wealth.