Computer Analysts and Programmers Ltd (CAP) was founded by Alex d'Agapeyeff, Barney Gibbens, and Harry Baecker in May 1962 and chaired by d’Agapeyeff for the following 20 years.

[1] [2] During the 1960s it produced CORAL compilers and a real time operating system for the Royal Navy.

[citation needed] d'Agapeyeff coined the term 'middleware' to describe the interface between application and system software at a presentation to a NATO conference in 1968.

He created BOS (Business Operating System), a portable environment to run commercial software on the emerging microcomputers.

In 1976, CAP Microsoft was formed to market services based on BOS and MicroCobol.