Microsoft – Company Overview, History, Products

Microsoft is an American multinational company that produces computer software electronics and personal computer devices. Microsoft currently employs more than 180,000 people and it is currently headquartered in Redmond, Washington in the United States. Microsoft is a part of the big 5 American IT companies besides Google, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook. Microsoft ranked 21 in the Fortune 500 companies by revenue and so far it is the highest software maker by revenue in 2020. Products of Microsoft include Xbox, Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, and Edge browser. Other services provided by Microsoft include Bing search engine, Azure cloud computing, and Windows.

Microsoft – History of the Company

Microsoft was initially founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in April 1975. They developed the BASIC language interpreters for the old age devices but as soon as new software came, Microsoft updated their software for MS-DOS followed by Windows. When Microsoft applied for the IPO in 1986, more than 12000 of its employees became millionaires instantly. By 1985 Microsoft was giving a fight with its competitors through the Windows operating system and the MS office suite.

Then in 1995, Microsoft began to expand its vision for the internet and the world wide web as it introduced its most famous browser of all time, Internet explorer. Then in January 2000, Bill Gates resigned from the Microsoft CEO position, and then Steve Ballmer became the CEO of Microsoft. Then in 2001, Microsoft launched its new version of Windows called Windows XP which was the most famous operating system ever. Then in 2017, Microsoft ramped up its cloud computing business after amazon’s Web services called Azure services platform.

Microsoft also dried its hand in developing its own operating system for smartphones called the Windows phone which was launched in 2012 but failed miserably. Since then Microsoft has lost a huge chunk of its users to other companies like Google and Apple.

Then finally on February 4, 2014, Steve Ballmer stepped down as Microsoft CEO and then Satya Nadella took command over Microsoft. Since the tenure of Satya Nadella, Microsoft has focused a lot on the upcoming future technology like cloud computing, metaverse, and gaming.

Microsoft – Products and Services

In today’s modern world we all use Microsoft products in our daily lives; the most used Microsoft products and services are as follows:

Microsoft Office: Microsoft office is one of the most popular application software which includes popular tools like Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Access, and One Note. These tools are required by people all over the world for word processing, spreadsheet programming, presentation creation, email clients, and database management.

Microsoft Azure: Microsoft Azure is one of the most popular cloud computing services provided by Microsoft as a part of their software as a service program (SaaS) and infrastructure as a service program (SaaS) which includes many different programming languages and frameworks. Currently Azure is the second most used cloud computing service in the world after Amazon Web Services.

Microsoft Windows: Microsoft Windows is the most popular operating system in the world other than Macintosh. Microsoft launched its first Windows graphic user interface on November 20, 1985, for MS-DOS. Windows currently have a 75 percent market share in the personal computer space. Recently Microsoft has launched its latest version of Windows 11 in October 2021.

Xbox: Xbox is the popular gaming console and software for streaming services owned by Microsoft. Xbox also produces video game controllers and consoles for the giving industry along with hosting gaming apps on their Store. Microsoft launched its first Xbox in May 2001 and sold 24 million units all over the world in the year 2006.

LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a popular social media and employment-oriented website for working professionals and employees. It is a subsidiary company of Microsoft. People can connect with their colleagues and other working professionals for work-related tasks and organize offline meetings and publish job postings as well.

GitHub: GitHub is the popular internet hosting services and software development company owned by Microsoft since 2018. GitHub has currently more than 200 million repositories and 83 million users and it has the largest source code data all over the world. Many developers and companies use GitHub to host their websites and programmable code on them.