He shaped the modern way of communication in society, and the inventor of PPT passed away

·Dennis Austin proposed at least half of the main design ideas and fully contributed to the smoothness and perfect completion of PowerPoint. "If Dennis wasn't the one who designed PowerPoint, no one would have heard of it."

·"People can easily mock its corporate characteristics, but the real story is its participatory and democratic nature. High school students use it, rabbis use it, and people even use it for wedding toasts."

Dennis Austin, the inventor of PowerPoint. picture

On September 1st local time, the inventor of PowerPoint, Dennis Austin, passed away at his home in Los Altos, California, at the age of 76.

According to the Washington Post on September 8th, Austin's son Michael Austin revealed that the cause of death was lung cancer metastasizing to the brain.

PowerPoint has played an important role in shaping the way information is communicated in modern society and has become synonymous with the workplace world. Its astonishing popularity, especially its ability to easily create tedious and endless presentations, makes it not only an indispensable tool for everyone, but also a rare cross-cultural symbol. No matter in which country, PowerPoint can easily become a subject of ridicule and entertainment in cultural and artistic works. It also has a well-known abbreviation: PPT.

Everyone can create slides

In 1987, as the digital successor to projectors, PowerPoint was released by software company Forethought. Prior to this, making presentations was a labor-intensive task typically assigned to the design department or outsourced. PowerPoint allows anyone who can use a computer to create slides with just a mouse click and rearrange information.

Austin, as a software engineer, collaborated with Forethought executive Robert Gaskins to design PowerPoint to be easy to operate.

"Our users are familiar with computers, but may not be familiar with graphic software," Austin wrote in an unpublished article on the history of PowerPoint development. He uses the "direct operation interface" to make "the content you are editing looks exactly like the final product".

PowerPoint, originally known as Presenter, was designed for Apple Macintosh computers with a graphical interface, providing users with the ability to merge graphics, clip art, and multiple fonts. Austin wrote that the goal is "to create a presentation, not just slides."

In his book "Sweating Bullets: Notes on Inventing PowerPoint," Gaskins wrote that "Dennis proposed at least half of the main design ideas," and he contributed entirely to the smoothness and perfect completion. "If Dennis wasn't the one who designed PowerPoint, no one would have heard of it," added Gaskins.

A few months after PowerPoint was launched, Microsoft acquired Foresight for $14 million. Microsoft founder Bill Gates initially held a skeptical attitude, but eventually changed his mind. This project is so huge that Microsoft has established a new business unit.

Microsoft ultimately added PowerPoint to the Office suite and released it on the Windows operating system in 1990. By 1993, PowerPoint's sales had exceeded $100 million. Nowadays, global users create over 30 million presentations using PowerPoint every day.

Global users now create over 30 million presentations using PowerPoint every day.

PowerPoint was despised by Steve Jobs

But in the process of becoming an important tool in the workplace, PowerPoint was ridiculed by corporate executives, business school professors, and military officers.

"I hate the way people use PowerPoint presentations without thinking," according to Walter Isaacson's "Steve Jobs Biography," Apple founder Steve Jobs said. "People face problems by creating presentations. But I want them to participate and discuss problems on the desktop, rather than presenting a bunch of slides. People who know what they're saying don't need PowerPoint."

Steve Jobs prohibited the company from using PowerPoint. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos did the same and asked executives to write memos for sharing before the meeting began.

At the Pentagon, PowerPoint was criticized. "PowerPoint makes us stupid," according to The New York Times, former US Secretary of Defense Jim Matisse said at a military conference in 2010, "We have encountered an enemy, and he is PowerPoint."

"This is very dangerous because it can create illusions of understanding and control." Lieutenant General H R. McMaster told reporters.

In 2003, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's committee investigating the disintegration of the Columbia space shuttle found that a PowerPoint slide used "hasty" and "ambiguous quantitative words" to cover up the safety issues of the spacecraft, which were "life-threatening". The report states, "The committee believes that the widespread use of PowerPoint presentation slides instead of technical papers indicates issues with NASA's technical communication methods."

Austin and Gaskins agree with these complaints, but believe they unfairly point the finger at the software, rather than the people who use it for lazy and poor presentations. "It's like a printing press," Austin told The Wall Street Journal in 2007. "It can print all kinds of garbage."

"The true story is participatory and democratic"

Austin was born on May 28, 1947 in Pittsburgh, USA. Her father ran an executive association, and her mother worked as a typist before becoming a housewife.

When Austin studied engineering at the University of Virginia, he used computers that were room sized. Students programmed on the machines, generated punch cards, and then had trained computer operators input them into the computer. After running the program all night, the students came back the next day to check the output.

After graduating in 1969, Austin pursued graduate studies at Arizona State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of California, Santa Barbara. Subsequently, he worked at companies such as General Electric and Honeywell International.

In 1984, Austin was hired by Forethought, a company founded by two former Apple employees.

After Microsoft acquired Foresight, Austin continued to lead the development of PowerPoint until his retirement in 1996.

Austin's friends and family said he never mind jokes about PowerPoint. He was also well aware that the software he invented was used for demonstration purposes far beyond expectations, not only as a proposal, but even as a prop in stand up comedy performances.

In 2005, Austin attended an event at the University of California, Berkeley where David Byrne, the lead singer of the rock band Talking Heads, presented a PowerPoint presentation showcasing the use of the software to create art.

"PowerPoint is Rodney Danzigfeld from the software industry: it's not being respected," said Ken Goldberg, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley and the organizer of the event. Danzigfeld is an American stand up comedian known for his self deprecating wit and humor, with the famous slogan "I don't get respect!".

"People can easily mock its corporate nature, but the real story is its participatory and democratic nature. High school students use it, rabbis use it, and people even use it for wedding toasts," Goldberg said.