Microsoft Company is an American multinational technology company. It produces computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and some related services. Headquarters were on the Microsoft campus in Redmond city, Washington State, in the country of USA.
Microsoft’s most popular software products are the Windows line of operating systems. Its main hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touch screen personal computers.
Microsoft Company ranks No. 1 in the year of 2020 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. It is the world’s largest software maker by revenue as of 2019.
Microsoft s one of the Big Five American information technology companies, along with Alphabet Inc. (Google), Amazon, Apple and Meta (Facebook).
Microsoft Company was founded to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Microsoft Altair 8800. It dominated the personal computer operating system market in the mid-1980s with MS-DOS and then after Windows operating system.
Microsoft Company’s 1986 initial public offering (IPO) was successful. The rise in its share price created 3 billionaires and 12,000 millionaires among Microsoft employees. Since the 1990s, Microsoft has expanded its offerings beyond just operating systems. In this time Company has made several corporate acquisitions.
Microsoft Company largest being the purchase of LinkedIn social network for $26.2 billion in December 2016.
As of 2015, Microsoft has market-dominance in the IBM PC compatible operating system and the office software suite. But, in this time Microsoft Company has lost a large share of the overall operating system market in Android.
Microsoft Company produces a wide range of other consumer and business software for desktops, laptops, tabs, gadgets and servers. It also offers internet search (with Bing), digital services marketplace (via MSN), mixed reality (HoloLens), cloud computing (Azure), and software development (Visual Studio).
American business magnate “Steve Ballmer” was replaced Bill Gates as a CEO in the year of 2000. In the year 2008, Microsoft implemented a “devices and services” strategy and acquired the company “Danger Inc.”.
Microsoft entered the personal computer product market with the launch of the Surface line of tablet computers in June 2012. The company also started Microsoft Mobile by acquiring Nokia’s devices and services division.
Since Satya Nadella became CEO in 2014, Microsoft has shifted its focus from hardware to cloud computing. This move has led to a significant increase in the company’s stock value. It was reached its highest point since December 1999.
Previously dethroned by Apple in 2010, Microsoft regained its position as the world’s most valuable publicly traded company in 2018.
Microsoft had reached the trillion dollar market cap in April 2019. It became the 3rd US public company to be valued at $1 trillion after Apple and Amazon respectively. By 2022, Microsoft will become the 4th highest global brand value.
Childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen tried their talent at business using their skills in computer programming. Bill Gates and Paul Allen had founded Traf-O-Data in the year 1972. Traf-O-Data sold a rudimentary computer for tracking and analyzing automobile traffic data.
Bill Gates attended Harvard University. Paul Allen pursued a degree in computer science at Washington State University. After that, Paul Allen stopped working at Honeywell.
The January 1975 issue of “Popular Electronics” featured the Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) “Altair 8800” microcomputer.
Microsoft released Windows as a graphical extension for MS-DOS on November 20, 1985. It began developing OS/2 with IBM the in August.
In the year on 1986 February 26, Microsoft had moved its headquarters from Bellevue city to Redmond city in Washington State, USA.
The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division filed a Competitive Impact Statement on July 27 in the year 1994. The statement indicated that from 1988 until July 15, 1994. Microsoft encouraged several Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to adopt anti-competitive practices. These practices were related to processor licenses.
On January 13, 2000, Bill Gates passed on the CEO role to Steve Ballmer, his college buddy, who had been working at the company since 1980. Bill Gates established a new position for himself as the chief software architect.
In March 2004, the European Union took antitrust legal action against Microsoft. The EU accused the company of abusing its dominance with the Windows OS. This resulted in a €497 million ($613 million) judgment. As a result, Microsoft was forced to produce new versions of Windows XP without Windows Media.
The company 2nd video game console, the Xbox 360, was released in November 2005. In these there are two versions, the basic version is $299.99 and the deluxe version is $399.99. In June 2011, Microsoft presented Windows 8. It was a new operating system created to run on both personal computers and tablets, in Taipei.
A developer preview was released on September 13. This developer preview was replaced by a consumer preview on February 29, 2012. The Surface was unveiled on June 18 as the first computer in the company’s history built with Microsoft hardware.
In August 2012, the New York City Police Department had announced the partnership with Microsoft. This partnership was to develop a domain awareness system used for police surveillance in New York City, in USA.
On February 4, 2014, Steve Ballmer stepped down as Microsoft’s CEO. After that, Satya Nadella who previously led Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise division was succeeded as CEO.
On the same day, Bill Gates was replaced by John W. Thompson assumed the role of chairman. On April 25, 2014, Microsoft purchased Nokia Devices and Services for $7.2 billion. Thompson became the 2nd chairman in the company’s history after this acquisition.
On January 21, 2015, Microsoft announced the release of their first interactive whiteboard, the Microsoft Surface Hub. Windows 10 operating system was released on 29th July 2015. Also, the Windows Server 2016 was also released on the same day.
In January 2018, Microsoft patched Windows 10 for CPU issues related to Intel’s Meltdown security breach. The patch led to problems with Microsoft Azure virtual machines based on Intel’s CPU architecture.
