Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen. Gates talked IBM into letting Microsoft retain licensing rights to the MS-DOS operating system that IBM needed for their new personal computer, allowing Gates to profit greatly from licensing. In 1983, Microsoft formally announced Windows, a next-generation operating system. Gates married Melinda French Gates in 1994 and they have three children together. Bill and Melinda Gates have endowed their foundation with over $28.8 billion to support global health and education initiatives.