Bio:  Dennis R. Austin

Dennis is an experienced and resourceful designer of user interfaces and software systems.  His most well-known designs are the early versions of Microsoft PowerPoint.  He is also a developer and development manager with experience in a variety of systems and languages  including Macintosh, Windows, Unix, mainframe systems, C, C#, Perl, Object Pascal, Modula, various scripting languages, microprogramming languages, and proprietary systems.  

Career History

1997 - Present

A Bit Better Corporation, Co-Owner/Vice President
Consultant in product design, user interface design, and software development management.  Designer and webmaster of company e-commerce site.

1987 - 1996

Microsoft Corporation, Manager, Software Development
Principal designer of PowerPoint through four subsequent major versions for Macintosh and Windows.  Managed the development team as it grew from two to thirty-five during the period.  

1984 - 1987

Forethought, Inc. Software Developer
Designer and primary developer of a new Macintosh presentation product named PowerPoint.   Contributed to the design of FileMaker, which was a Forethought product at the time.  Forethought was acquired by Microsoft in 1987, although FileMaker was sold to Claris.

1982 - 1984

Gavilan Computers Software Architect
Served as chief designer and architecture coordinator for proprietary software system on the world's first battery-powered laptop computer.  

1973 - 1981

Burroughs Corporation (Now Unisys) Software Developer
Designer and implementer of several proprietary and non-proprietary languages, including Pascal, Modula, and C.  Implemented a version of the Unix operating system for Burroughs hardware.  Designer of two instruction set architectures implemented in microcode.

Education

University of Virginia:  Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering

Arizona State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and University of California at Santa Barbara:  Graduate Studies in computer science.

Patents

Microsoft PowerPoint 95 and Office 97 Method for Black and White printing of color images.  (Held by Microsoft)

Microsoft PowerPoint 95 and Office 97 Slide Show Browser. (Held by Microsoft)

Microsoft PowerPoint 97 Method for controlling Slide Show music sound tracks.  (Held by Microsoft)