What company did Microsoft acquire in 1987 to obtain PowerPoint?

Microsoft acquired Forethought, Inc. in 1987 to obtain PowerPoint. Forethought was a California software company whose team had created the presentation program originally known by the code name Presenter before renaming it PowerPoint shortly before release.

PowerPoint 1.0 shipped for the Macintosh in April 1987 under the Forethought brand. Microsoft saw the product as a way to enter the desktop-presentation market quickly, and it completed the acquisition later that year for approximately $14 million. Forethought’s PowerPoint team, including key developers and executive Robert Gaskins, joined Microsoft and continued developing the product.

The acquisition is sometimes confused with Microsoft’s later purchase of other technology companies, such as Aldus, Macromedia, or Adobe-related businesses. Those companies were not the source of PowerPoint. Microsoft released a Windows version in 1990, and PowerPoint later became one of the central applications in the Microsoft Office suite.