fbpx
Wikipedia

Microsoft

January 04, 2023

Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services. Headquartered at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington, Microsoft's best-known software products are the Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft Office suite, and the Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. Microsoft ranked No. 21 in the 2020 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue;[2] it was the world's largest software maker by revenue as of 2019. It is one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Meta.

Microsoft Corporation
Building 92 on the Microsoft Redmond campus
TypePublic
ISINUS5949181045
IndustryInformation technology
FoundedApril 4, 1975; 47 years ago (1975-04-04) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.
Founders
HeadquartersOne Microsoft Way
Redmond, Washington,
U.S.
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Products
Brands
Services
Revenue US$198.3 billion (2022)
US$83.4 billion (2022)
US$72.7 billion (2022)
Total assets US$364.8 billion (2022)
Total equity US$166.5 billion (2022)
Number of employees
221,000 (2022)
Divisions
Subsidiaries
Websitemicrosoft.com
Footnotes / references
Financials as of June 30, 2022[1]

Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. It rose to dominate the personal computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by Windows. The company's 1986 initial public offering (IPO), and subsequent rise in its share price, created three billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires among Microsoft employees. Since the 1990s, it has increasingly diversified from the operating system market and has made a number of corporate acquisitions, their largest being the acquisition of LinkedIn for $26.2  billion in December 2016,[3] followed by their acquisition of Skype Technologies for $8.5 billion in May 2011.[4]

As of 2015, Microsoft is market-dominant in the IBM PC compatible operating system market and the office software suite market, although it has lost the majority of the overall operating system market to Android.[5] The company also produces a wide range of other consumer and enterprise software for desktops, laptops, tabs, gadgets, and servers, including Internet search (with Bing), the digital services market (through MSN), mixed reality (HoloLens), cloud computing (Azure), and software development (Visual Studio).

Steve Ballmer replaced Gates as CEO in 2000, and later envisioned a "devices and services" strategy.[6] This unfolded with Microsoft acquiring Danger Inc. in 2008,[7] entering the personal computer production market for the first time in June 2012 with the launch of the Microsoft Surface line of tablet computers, and later forming Microsoft Mobile through the acquisition of Nokia's devices and services division. Since Satya Nadella took over as CEO in 2014, the company has scaled back on hardware and has instead focused on cloud computing, a move that helped the company's shares reach its highest value since December 1999.[8][9]

Earlier dethroned by Apple in 2010, in 2018 Microsoft reclaimed its position as the most valuable publicly traded company in the world.[10] In April 2019, Microsoft reached the trillion-dollar market cap, becoming the third U.S. public company to be valued at over $1 trillion after Apple and Amazon respectively. As of 2022, Microsoft has the fourth-highest global brand valuation.

Microsoft has been criticized for its monopolistic practices and the company's software has been criticized for problems with ease of use, robustness, and security.

History

Main article: History of Microsoft
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Microsoft.

1972–1985: Founding

 
An Altair 8800 computer (left) with the popular Model 33 ASR Teletype as terminal, paper tape reader, and paper tape punch
 
Paul Allen and Bill Gates on October 19, 1981, after signing a pivotal contract with IBM[11]: 228 

Childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen sought to make a business using their skills in computer programming.[12] In 1972, they founded Traf-O-Data, which sold a rudimentary computer to track and analyze automobile traffic data. Gates enrolled at Harvard University while Allen pursued a degree in computer science at Washington State University, though he later dropped out to work at Honeywell.[13] The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics featured Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems's (MITS) Altair 8800 microcomputer,[14] which inspired Allen to suggest that they could program a BASIC interpreter for the device. Gates called MITS and claimed that he had a working interpreter, and MITS requested a demonstration. Allen worked on a simulator for the Altair while Gates developed the interpreter, and it worked flawlessly when they demonstrated it to MITS in March 1975 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. MITS agreed to distribute it, marketing it as Altair BASIC.[11]: 108, 112–114  Gates and Allen established Microsoft on April 4, 1975, with Gates as CEO,[15] and Allen suggested the name "Micro-Soft", short for micro-computer software.[16][17] In August 1977, the company formed an agreement with ASCII Magazine in Japan, resulting in its first international office of ASCII Microsoft.[18] Microsoft moved its headquarters to Bellevue, Washington, in January 1979.[15]

Microsoft entered the operating system (OS) business in 1980 with its own version of Unix called Xenix,[19] but it was MS-DOS that solidified the company's dominance. IBM awarded a contract to Microsoft in November 1980 to provide a version of the CP/M OS to be used in the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC).[20] For this deal, Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products which it branded as MS-DOS, although IBM rebranded it to IBM PC DOS. Microsoft retained ownership of MS-DOS following the release of the IBM PC in August 1981. IBM had copyrighted the IBM PC BIOS, so other companies had to reverse engineer it in order for non-IBM hardware to run as IBM PC compatibles, but no such restriction applied to the operating systems. Microsoft eventually became the leading PC operating systems vendor.[21][22]: 210  The company expanded into new markets with the release of the Microsoft Mouse in 1983, as well as with a publishing division named Microsoft Press.[11]: 232  Paul Allen resigned from Microsoft in 1983 after developing Hodgkin's lymphoma.[23] Allen claimed in Idea Man: A Memoir by the Co-founder of Microsoft that Gates wanted to dilute his share in the company when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease because he did not think that he was working hard enough.[24] Allen later invested in low-tech sectors, sports teams, commercial real estate, neuroscience, private space flight, and more.[25]

1985–1994: Windows and Office

 
Windows 1.0 was released on November 20, 1985, as the first version of the Windows line.

Microsoft released Windows on November 20, 1985, as a graphical extension for MS-DOS,[11]: 242–243, 246  despite having begun jointly developing OS/2 with IBM the previous August.[26] Microsoft moved its headquarters from Bellevue to Redmond, Washington, on February 26, 1986, and went public on March 13,[27] with the resulting rise in stock making an estimated four billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees.[28] Microsoft released its version of OS/2 to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) on April 2, 1987.[11] In 1990, the Federal Trade Commission examined Microsoft for possible collusion due to the partnership with IBM, marking the beginning of more than a decade of legal clashes with the government.[29] : 243–244  Meanwhile, the company was at work on Microsoft Windows NT, which was heavily based on their copy of the OS/2 code. It shipped on July 21, 1993, with a new modular kernel and the 32-bit Win32 application programming interface (API), making it easier to port from 16-bit (MS-DOS-based) Windows. Microsoft informed IBM of Windows NT, and the OS/2 partnership deteriorated.[30]

In 1990, Microsoft introduced the Microsoft Office suite which bundled separate applications such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.[11]: 301  On May 22, Microsoft launched Windows 3.0, featuring streamlined user interface graphics and improved protected mode capability for the Intel 386 processor,[31] and both Office and Windows became dominant in their respective areas.[32][33]

On July 27, 1994, the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division filed a competitive impact statement that said: "Beginning in 1988 and continuing until July 15, 1994, Microsoft induced many OEMs to execute anti-competitive 'per processor licenses. Under a per-processor license, an OEM pays Microsoft a royalty for each computer it sells containing a particular microprocessor, whether the OEM sells the computer with a Microsoft operating system or a non-Microsoft operating system. In effect, the royalty payment to Microsoft when no Microsoft product is being used acts as a penalty, or tax, on the OEM's use of a competing PC operating system. Since 1988, Microsoft's use of per processor licenses has increased."[34]

1995–2007: Foray into the Web, Windows 95, Windows XP, and Xbox

 
In 1996, Microsoft released Windows CE, a version of the operating system meant for personal digital assistants and other tiny computers, shown here on the HP 300LX.

Following Bill Gates' internal "Internet Tidal Wave memo" on May 26, 1995, Microsoft began to redefine its offerings and expand its product line into computer networking and the World Wide Web.[35] With a few exceptions of new companies, like Netscape, Microsoft was the only major and established company that acted fast enough to be a part of the World Wide Web practically from the start. Other companies like Borland, WordPerfect, Novell, IBM and Lotus, being much slower to adapt to the new situation, would give Microsoft a market dominance.[36] The company released Windows 95 on August 24, 1995, featuring pre-emptive multitasking, a completely new user interface with a novel start button, and 32-bit compatibility; similar to NT, it provided the Win32 API.[37][38]: 20  Windows 95 came bundled with the online service MSN, which was at first intended to be a competitor to the Internet,[dubious – discuss] and (for OEMs) Internet Explorer, a Web browser. Internet Explorer has not bundled with the retail Windows 95 boxes, because the boxes were printed before the team finished the Web browser, and instead were included in the Windows 95 Plus! pack.[39] Backed by a high-profile marketing campaign[40] and what The New York Times called "the splashiest, most frenzied, most expensive introduction of a computer product in the industry's history,"[41] Windows 95 quickly became a success.[42] Branching out into new markets in 1996, Microsoft and General Electric's NBC unit created a new 24/7 cable news channel, MSNBC.[43] Microsoft created Windows CE 1.0, a new OS designed for devices with low memory and other constraints, such as personal digital assistants.[44] In October 1997, the Justice Department filed a motion in the Federal District Court, stating that Microsoft violated an agreement signed in 1994 and asked the court to stop the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows.[11]: 323–324 

 
Microsoft released the first installment in the Xbox series of consoles in 2001. The Xbox, graphically powerful compared to its rivals, featured a standard PC's 733 MHz Intel Pentium III processor.

On January 13, 2000, Bill Gates handed over the CEO position to Steve Ballmer, an old college friend of Gates and employee of the company since 1980, while creating a new position for himself as Chief Software Architect.[11]: 111, 228 [15] Various companies including Microsoft formed the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance in October 1999 to (among other things) increase security and protect intellectual property through identifying changes in hardware and software. Critics decried the alliance as a way to enforce indiscriminate restrictions over how consumers use software, and over how computers behave, and as a form of digital rights management: for example, the scenario where a computer is not only secured for its owner but also secured against its owner as well.[45][46] On April 3, 2000, a judgment was handed down in the case of United States v. Microsoft Corp.,[47] calling the company an "abusive monopoly."[48] Microsoft later settled with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2004.[27] On October 25, 2001, Microsoft released Windows XP, unifying the mainstream and NT lines of OS under the NT codebase.[49] The company released the Xbox later that year, entering the video game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo.[50] In March 2004 the European Union brought antitrust legal action against the company, citing it abused its dominance with the Windows OS, resulting in a judgment of €497 million ($613 million) and requiring Microsoft to produce new versions of Windows XP without Windows Media Player: Windows XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N.[51][52] In November 2005, the company's second video game console, the Xbox 360, was released. There were two versions, a basic version for $299.99 and a deluxe version for $399.99.[53]

Increasingly present in the hardware business following Xbox, Microsoft 2006 released the Zune series of digital media players, a successor of its previous software platform Portable Media Center. These expanded on previous hardware commitments from Microsoft following its original Microsoft Mouse in 1983; as of 2007 the company sold the best-selling wired keyboard (Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000), mouse (IntelliMouse), and desktop webcam (LifeCam) in the United States. That year the company also launched the Surface "digital table", later renamed PixelSense.[54]

2007–2011: Microsoft Azure, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Microsoft Stores

 
CEO Steve Ballmer at the MIX event in 2008. In an interview about his management style in 2005, he mentioned that his first priority was to get the people he delegates to in order. Ballmer also emphasized the need to continue pursuing new technologies even if initial attempts fail, citing the original attempts with Windows as an example.[55]
 
Headquarters of the European Commission, which has imposed several fines on Microsoft

Released in January 2007, the next version of Windows, Vista, focused on features, security and a redesigned user interface dubbed Aero.[56][57] Microsoft Office 2007, released at the same time, featured a "Ribbon" user interface which was a significant departure from its predecessors. Relatively strong sales of both products helped to produce a record profit in 2007.[58] The European Union imposed another fine of €899 million ($1.4 billion) for Microsoft's lack of compliance with the March 2004 judgment on February 27, 2008, saying that the company charged rivals unreasonable prices for key information about its workgroup and backoffice servers.[59] Microsoft stated that it was in compliance and that "these fines are about the past issues that have been resolved".[60] 2007 also saw the creation of a multi-core unit at Microsoft, following the steps of server companies such as Sun and IBM.[61]

Gates retired from his role as Chief Software Architect on June 27, 2008, a decision announced in June 2006, while retaining other positions related to the company in addition to being an advisor for the company on key projects.[62][63] Azure Services Platform, the company's entry into the cloud computing market for Windows, launched on October 27, 2008.[64] On February 12, 2009, Microsoft announced its intent to open a chain of Microsoft-branded retail stores, and on October 22, 2009, the first retail Microsoft Store opened in Scottsdale, Arizona; the same day Windows 7 was officially released to the public. Windows 7's focus was on refining Vista with ease-of-use features and performance enhancements, rather than an extensive reworking of Windows.[65][66][67]

As the smartphone industry boomed in the late 2000s, Microsoft had struggled to keep up with its rivals in providing a modern smartphone operating system, falling behind Apple and Google-sponsored Android in the United States.[68] As a result, in 2010 Microsoft revamped their aging flagship mobile operating system, Windows Mobile, replacing it with the new Windows Phone OS that was released in October that year.[69][70] It used a new user interface design language, codenamed "Metro", which prominently used simple shapes, typography, and iconography, utilizing the concept of minimalism. Microsoft implemented a new strategy for the software industry, providing a consistent user experience across all smartphones using the Windows Phone OS. It launched an alliance with Nokia in 2011 and Microsoft worked closely with the company to co-develop Windows Phone,[71] but remained partners with long-time Windows Mobile OEM HTC.[72] Microsoft is a founding member of the Open Networking Foundation started on March 23, 2011. Fellow founders were Google, HP Networking, Yahoo!, Verizon Communications, Deutsche Telekom and 17 other companies. This nonprofit organization is focused on providing support for a cloud computing initiative called Software-Defined Networking.[73] The initiative is meant to speed innovation through simple software changes in telecommunications networks, wireless networks, data centers, and other networking areas.[74]

2011–2014: Windows 8/8.1, Xbox One, Outlook.com, and Surface devices

 
Surface Pro 3, part of the Surface series of laplets by Microsoft

Following the release of Windows Phone, Microsoft undertook a gradual rebranding of its product range throughout 2011 and 2012, with the corporation's logos, products, services, and websites adopting the principles and concepts of the Metro design language.[75] Microsoft unveiled Windows 8, an operating system designed to power both personal computers and tablet computers, in Taipei in June 2011.[76] A developer preview was released on September 13, which was subsequently replaced by a consumer preview on February 29, 2012, and released to the public in May.[77] The Surface was unveiled on June 18, becoming the first computer in the company's history to have its hardware made by Microsoft.[78][79] On June 25, Microsoft paid US$1.2 billion to buy the social network Yammer.[80] On July 31, they launched the Outlook.com webmail service to compete with Gmail.[81] On September 4, 2012, Microsoft released Windows Server 2012.[82]

In July 2012, Microsoft sold its 50% stake in MSNBC, which it had run as a joint venture with NBC since 1996.[83] On October 1, Microsoft announced its intention to launch a news operation, part of a new-look MSN, with Windows 8 later in the month.[84] On October 26, 2012, Microsoft launched Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface.[79][85] Three days later, Windows Phone 8 was launched.[86] To cope with the potential for an increase in demand for products and services, Microsoft opened a number of "holiday stores" across the U.S. to complement the increasing number of "bricks-and-mortar" Microsoft Stores that opened in 2012.[87] On March 29, 2013, Microsoft launched a Patent Tracker.[88]

In August 2012, the New York City Police Department announced a partnership with Microsoft for the development of the Domain Awareness System which is used for Police surveillance in New York City.[89]

 
The Xbox One console, released in 2013

The Kinect, a motion-sensing input device made by Microsoft and designed as a video game controller, first introduced in November 2010, was upgraded for the 2013 release of the Xbox One video game console. Kinect's capabilities were revealed in May 2013: an ultra-wide 1080p camera, function in the dark due to an infrared sensor, higher-end processing power and new software, the ability to distinguish between fine movements (such as a thumb movement), and determining a user's heart rate by looking at their face.[90] Microsoft filed a patent application in 2011 that suggests that the corporation may use the Kinect camera system to monitor the behavior of television viewers as part of a plan to make the viewing experience more interactive. On July 19, 2013, Microsoft stocks suffered their biggest one-day percentage sell-off since the year 2000, after its fourth-quarter report raised concerns among investors on the poor showings of both Windows 8 and the Surface tablet. Microsoft suffered a loss of more than US$32 billion.[91]

In line with the maturing PC business, in July 2013, Microsoft announced that it would reorganize the business into four new business divisions, namely Operating systems, Apps, Cloud, and Devices. All previous divisions will be dissolved into new divisions without any workforce cuts.[92] On September 3, 2013, Microsoft agreed to buy Nokia's mobile unit for $7 billion,[93] following Amy Hood taking the role of CFO.[94]

2014–2020: Windows 10, Microsoft Edge, and HoloLens

 
Satya Nadella succeeded Steve Ballmer as the CEO of Microsoft in February 2014.

On February 4, 2014, Steve Ballmer stepped down as CEO of Microsoft and was succeeded by Satya Nadella, who previously led Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise division.[95] On the same day, John W. Thompson took on the role of chairman, in place of Bill Gates, who continued to participate as a technology advisor.[96] Thompson became the second chairman in Microsoft's history.[97] On April 25, 2014, Microsoft acquired Nokia Devices and Services for $7.2 billion.[98] This new subsidiary was renamed Microsoft Mobile Oy.[99] On September 15, 2014, Microsoft acquired the video game development company Mojang, best known for Minecraft, for $2.5 billion.[100] On June 8, 2017, Microsoft acquired Hexadite, an Israeli security firm, for $100 million.[101][102]

On January 21, 2015, Microsoft announced the release of their first Interactive whiteboard, Microsoft Surface Hub.[103] On July 29, 2015, Windows 10 was released,[104] with its server sibling, Windows Server 2016, released in September 2016. In Q1 2015, Microsoft was the third largest maker of mobile phones, selling 33 million units (7.2% of all). While a large majority (at least 75%) of them do not run any version of Windows Phone— those other phones are not categorized as smartphones by Gartner – in the same time frame 8 million Windows smartphones (2.5% of all smartphones) were made by all manufacturers (but mostly by Microsoft).[105] Microsoft's share of the U.S. smartphone market in January 2016 was 2.7%.[106] During the summer of 2015 the company lost $7.6 billion related to its mobile-phone business, firing 7,800 employees.[107]

On March 1, 2016, Microsoft announced the merger of its PC and Xbox divisions, with Phil Spencer announcing that Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps would be the focus for Microsoft's gaming in the future.[108] On January 24, 2017, Microsoft showcased Intune for Education at the BETT 2017 education technology conference in London.[109] Intune for Education is a new cloud-based application and device management service for the education sector.[110] In May 2016, the company announced it was laying off 1,850 workers, and taking an impairment and restructuring charge of $950 million.[107] In June 2016, Microsoft announced a project named Microsoft Azure Information Protection. It aims to help enterprises protect their data as it moves between servers and devices.[111] In November 2016, Microsoft joined the Linux Foundation as a Platinum member during Microsoft's Connect(); developer event in New York.[112] The cost of each Platinum membership is US$500,000 per year.[113] Some analysts deemed this unthinkable ten years prior, however, as in 2001 then-CEO Steve Ballmer called Linux "cancer".[114] Microsoft planned to launch a preview of Intune for Education "in the coming weeks", with general availability scheduled for spring 2017, priced at $30 per device, or through volume licensing agreements.[115]

 
The Nokia Lumia 1320, the Microsoft Lumia 535 and the Nokia Lumia 530, which all run on one of the now-discontinued Windows Phone operating systems

In January 2018, Microsoft patched Windows 10 to account for CPU problems related to Intel's Meltdown security breach. The patch led to issues with the Microsoft Azure virtual machines reliant on Intel's CPU architecture. On January 12, Microsoft released PowerShell Core 6.0 for the macOS and Linux operating systems.[116] In February 2018, Microsoft killed notification support for their Windows Phone devices which effectively ended firmware updates for the discontinued devices.[116] In March 2018, Microsoft recalled Windows 10 S to change it to a mode for the Windows operating system rather than a separate and unique operating system. In March the company also established guidelines that censor users of Office 365 from using profanity in private documents.[116] In April 2018, Microsoft released the source code for Windows File Manager under the MIT License to celebrate the program's 20th anniversary. In April the company further expressed willingness to embrace open source initiatives by announcing Azure Sphere as its own derivative of the Linux operating system.[116] In May 2018, Microsoft partnered with 17 American intelligence agencies to develop cloud computing products. The project is dubbed "Azure Government" and has ties to the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) surveillance program.[116] On June 4, 2018, Microsoft officially announced the acquisition of GitHub for $7.5 billion, a deal that closed on October 26, 2018.[117][118] On July 10, 2018, Microsoft revealed the Surface Go platform to the public. Later in the month, it converted Microsoft Teams to gratis.[116] In August 2018, Microsoft released two projects called Microsoft AccountGuard and Defending Democracy. It also unveiled Snapdragon 850 compatibility for Windows 10 on the ARM architecture.[119][120][116]

 
Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin using a Microsoft HoloLens mixed reality headset in September 2016

In August 2018, Toyota Tsusho began a partnership with Microsoft to create fish farming tools using the Microsoft Azure application suite for Internet of things (IoT) technologies related to water management. Developed in part by researchers from Kindai University, the water pump mechanisms use artificial intelligence to count the number of fish on a conveyor belt, analyze the number of fish, and deduce the effectiveness of water flow from the data the fish provide. The specific computer programs used in the process fall under the Azure Machine Learning and the Azure IoT Hub platforms.[121] In September 2018, Microsoft discontinued Skype Classic.[116] On October 10, 2018, Microsoft joined the Open Invention Network community despite holding more than 60,000 patents.[122] In November 2018, Microsoft agreed to supply 100,000 Microsoft HoloLens headsets to the United States military in order to "increase lethality by enhancing the ability to detect, decide and engage before the enemy."[123] In November 2018, Microsoft introduced Azure Multi-Factor Authentication for Microsoft Azure.[124] In December 2018, Microsoft announced Project Mu, an open source release of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) core used in Microsoft Surface and Hyper-V products. The project promotes the idea of Firmware as a Service.[125] In the same month, Microsoft announced the open source implementation of Windows Forms and the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) which will allow for further movement of the company toward the transparent release of key frameworks used in developing Windows desktop applications and software. December also saw the company discontinue the Microsoft Edge project in favor of Chromium backends for their browsers.[124]

On February 20, 2019, Microsoft Corp said it will offer its cyber security service AccountGuard to 12 new markets in Europe including Germany, France and Spain, to close security gaps and protect customers in political space from hacking.[126] In February 2019, hundreds of Microsoft employees protested the company's war profiteering from a $480 million contract to develop virtual reality headsets for the United States Army.[127]

2020–present: Acquisitions, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows 11

Main article: Acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft

On March 26, 2020, Microsoft announced it was acquiring Affirmed Networks for about $1.35 billion.[128][129] Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Microsoft closed all of its retail stores indefinitely due to health concerns.[130] On July 22, 2020, Microsoft announced plans to close its Mixer service, planning to move existing partners to Facebook Gaming.[131]

On July 31, 2020, it was reported that Microsoft was in talks to acquire TikTok after the Trump administration ordered ByteDance to divest ownership of the application to the U.S.[132] On August 3, 2020, after speculation on the deal, Donald Trump stated that Microsoft could buy the application, however, it should be completed by September 15, 2020, and that the United States Department of the Treasury should receive a portion if it were to go through.[133]

On August 5, 2020, Microsoft stopped its xCloud game streaming test for iOS devices. According to Microsoft, the future of xCloud on iOS remains unclear and potentially out of Microsoft's hands. Apple has imposed a strict limit on "remote desktop clients" which means applications are only allowed to connect to a user-owned host device or gaming console owned by the user.[134] On September 21, 2020, Microsoft announced its intent to acquire video game company ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, for about $7.5 billion, with the deal expected to occur in the second half of 2021 fiscal year.[135] On March 9, 2021, the acquisition was finalized and ZeniMax Media became part of Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios division.[136] The total price of the deal was $8.1 billion.[137]

On September 22, 2020, Microsoft announced that it had an exclusive license to use OpenAI’s GPT-3 artificial intelligence language generator.[138] The previous version of GPT-3, called GPT-2, made headlines for being “too dangerous to release” and had numerous capabilities, including designing websites, prescribing medication, answering questions, and penning articles.[139] On November 10, 2020, Microsoft released the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S video game consoles.[140]

In April 2021, Microsoft announced it would buy Nuance Communications for approximately $16 billion.[141] The acquisition of Nuance was completed in March 2022.[142] In 2021, in part due to the strong quarterly earnings spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, Microsoft's valuation came to near $2 trillion. The increased necessity for remote work and distance education drove demand for cloud computing and grew the company's gaming sales.[143][144][145]

On June 24, 2021, Microsoft announced Windows 11 during a Livestream. The announcement came with confusion after Microsoft announced Windows 10 would be the last version of the operating system; set to be released in the third quarter of 2021.[146] It was released to the general public on October 5, 2021.[147]

In early September 2021, it was announced that the company had acquired Takelessons, an online platform which connects students and tutors in numerous subjects. The acquisition positioned Microsoft to grow its presence in the market of providing an online education to large numbers of people.[148]

In October 2021, Microsoft announced that it began rolling out end-to-end encryption (E2EE) support for Microsoft Teams calls in order to secure business communication while using video conferencing software. Users can ensure that their calls are encrypted and can utilize a security code that both parties on a call must verify on their respective ends.[149] On October 7, Microsoft acquired Ally.io, a software service that measures companies' progress against OKRs. Microsoft plans to incorporate Ally.io into its Viva family of employee experience products.[150]

On January 18, 2022, Microsoft announced the acquisition of American video game developer and holding company Activision Blizzard in an all-cash deal worth $68.7 billion.[151] Activision Blizzard is best known for producing franchises, including but not limited to Warcraft, Diablo, Call of Duty, StarCraft, Candy Crush Saga, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Skylanders, and Overwatch.[152] Activision and Microsoft each released statements saying the acquisition was to benefit their businesses in the metaverse, many saw Microsoft's acquisition of video game studios as an attempt to compete against Meta Platforms, with TheStreet referring to Microsoft wanting to become "the Disney of the metaverse".[153][154] Microsoft has not released statements regarding Activision's recent legal controversies regarding employee abuse, but reports have alleged that Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, a major target of the controversy, will leave the company after the acquisition is finalized.[155] The deal is expected to close in 2023 followed by a review from the US Federal Trade Commission.[156][151]

In December 2022, Microsoft announced a new 10-year deal with the London Stock Exchange for products including Microsoft Azure; Microsoft acquired ~4% of the latter company as part of the deal.[157]

Corporate affairs

See also: Criticism of Microsoft; Internet censorship in China; and Embrace, extend, and extinguish

Board of directors

The company is run by a board of directors made up of mostly company outsiders, as is customary for publicly traded companies. Members of the board of directors as of July 2020 are Satya Nadella, Reid Hoffman, Hugh Johnston, Teri List-Stoll, Sandi Peterson, Penny Pritzker, Charles Scharf, Arne Sorenson, John W. Stanton, John W. Thompson, Emma Walmsley and Padmasree Warrior.[158] Board members are elected every year at the annual shareholders' meeting using a majority vote system. There are four committees within the board that oversee more specific matters. These committees include the Audit Committee, which handles accounting issues with the company including auditing and reporting; the Compensation Committee, which approves compensation for the CEO and other employees of the company; the Governance and Nominating Committee, which handles various corporate matters including the nomination of the board; and the Regulatory and Public Policy Committee, which includes legal/antitrust matters, along with privacy, trade, digital safety, artificial intelligence, and environmental sustainability.[159]

On March 13, 2020, Gates announced that he is leaving the board of directors of Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway to focus more on his philanthropic efforts. According to Aaron Tilley of The Wall Street Journal this is "marking the biggest boardroom departure in the tech industry since the death of longtime rival and Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs."[160]

On January 13, 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft's board of directors plans to hire an external law firm to review its sexual harassment and gender discrimination policies, and to release a summary of how the company handled past allegations of misconduct against Bill Gates and other corporate executives.[161]

Chief executives

  1. Bill Gates (1975–2000)
  2. Steve Ballmer (2000–2014)
  3. Satya Nadella (2014–present)

Financial

 
Five year history graph of Nasdaq: MSFT stock on July 17, 2013[162]

When Microsoft went public and launched its initial public offering (IPO) in 1986, the opening stock price was $21; after the trading day, the price closed at $27.75. As of July 2010, with the company's nine stock splits, any IPO shares would be multiplied by 288; if one were to buy the IPO today, given the splits and other factors, it would cost about 9 cents.[11]: 235–236 [163][164] The stock price peaked in 1999 at around $119 ($60.928, adjusting for splits).[165] The company began to offer a dividend on January 16, 2003, starting at eight cents per share for the fiscal year followed by a dividend of sixteen cents per share the subsequent year, switching from yearly to quarterly dividends in 2005 with eight cents a share per quarter and a special one-time payout of three dollars per share for the second quarter of the fiscal year.[165][166] Though the company had subsequent increases in dividend payouts, the price of Microsoft's stock remained steady for years.[166][167]

Standard & Poor's and Moody's Investors Service have both given a AAA rating to Microsoft, whose assets were valued at $41  billion as compared to only $8.5  billion in unsecured debt. Consequently, in February 2011 Microsoft released a corporate bond amounting to $2.25  billion with relatively low borrowing rates compared to government bonds.[168] For the first time in 20 years Apple Inc. surpassed Microsoft in Q1 2011 quarterly profits and revenues due to a slowdown in PC sales and continuing huge losses in Microsoft's Online Services Division (which contains its search engine Bing). Microsoft profits were $5.2  billion, while Apple Inc. profits were $6  billion, on revenues of $14.5  billion and $24.7  billion respectively.[169] Microsoft's Online Services Division has been continuously loss-making since 2006 and in Q1 2011 it lost $726  million. This follows a loss of $2.5  billion for the year 2010.[170]

On July 20, 2012, Microsoft posted its first quarterly loss ever, despite earning record revenues for the quarter and fiscal year, with a net loss of $492  million due to a writedown related to the advertising company aQuantive, which had been acquired for $6.2  billion back in 2007.[171] As of January 2014, Microsoft's market capitalization stood at $314B,[172] making it the 8th largest company in the world by market capitalization.[173] On November 14, 2014, Microsoft overtook ExxonMobil to become the second most-valuable company by market capitalization, behind only Apple Inc. Its total market value was over $410B—with the stock price hitting $50.04 a share, the highest since early 2000.[174] In 2015, Reuters reported that Microsoft Corp had earnings abroad of $76.4 billion which were untaxed by the Internal Revenue Service. Under U.S. law, corporations don't pay income tax on overseas profits until the profits are brought into the United States.[175]

Year Revenue
in mil. US$[176]		 Net income
in mil. US$[176]		 Total Assets
in mil. US$[176]		 Employees[176]
2005 39,788 12,254 70,815 61,000
2006 44,282 12,599 69,597 71,000
2007 51,122 14,065 63,171 79,000
2008 60,420 17,681 72,793 91,000
2009 58,437 14,569 77,888 93,000
2010 62,484 18,760 86,113 89,000
2011 69,943 23,150 108,704 90,000
2012 73,723 16,978 121,271 94,000
2013 77,849 21,863 142,431 99,000
2014 86,833 22,074 172,384 128,000
2015 93,580 12,193 174,472 118,000
2016 91,154 20,539 193,468 114,000
2017 96,571 25,489 250,312 124,000
2018 110,360 16,571 258,848 131,000
2019 125,843 39,240 286,556 144,106
2020 143,015 44,281 301,311 163,000
2021 168,088 61,271 333,779 181,000
2022 198,270 72,738 364,840 221,000

In November 2018, the company won a $480 million military contract with the U.S. government to bring augmented reality (AR) headset technology into the weapon repertoires of American soldiers. The two-year contract may result in follow-on orders of more than 100,000 headsets, according to documentation describing the bidding process. One of the contract's tag lines for the augmented reality technology seems to be its ability to enable "25 bloodless battles before the 1st battle", suggesting that actual combat training is going to be an essential aspect of the augmented reality headset capabilities.[177]

Subsidiaries

Microsoft is an international business. As such, it needs subsidiaries present in whatever national markets it chooses to harvest. An example is Microsoft Canada, which it established in 1985.[178] Other countries have similar installations, to funnel profits back up to Redmond and to distribute the dividends to the holders of MSFT stock.

Marketing

 
Windows 8 Launch Event in Akihabara, Tokyo on October 25, 2012

In 2004, Microsoft commissioned research firms to do independent studies comparing the total cost of ownership (TCO) of Windows Server 2003 to Linux; the firms concluded that companies found Windows easier to administrate than Linux, thus those using Windows would administrate faster resulting in lower costs for their company (i.e. lower TCO).[179] This spurred a wave of related studies; a study by the Yankee Group concluded that upgrading from one version of Windows Server to another costs a fraction of the switching costs from Windows Server to Linux, although companies surveyed noted the increased security and reliability of Linux servers and concern about being locked into using Microsoft products.[180] Another study, released by the Open Source Development Labs, claimed that the Microsoft studies were "simply outdated and one-sided" and their survey concluded that the TCO of Linux was lower due to Linux administrators managing more servers on average and other reasons.[181]

As part of the "Get the Facts" campaign, Microsoft highlighted the .NET Framework trading platform that it had developed in partnership with Accenture for the London Stock Exchange, claiming that it provided "five nines" reliability. After suffering extended downtime and unreliability[182][183] the London Stock Exchange announced in 2009 that it was planning to drop its Microsoft solution and switch to a Linux-based one in 2010.[184][185]

In 2012, Microsoft hired a political pollster named Mark Penn, whom The New York Times called "famous for bulldozing" his political opponents[186] as Executive Vice-president, Advertising and Strategy. Penn created a series of negative advertisements targeting one of Microsoft's chief competitors, Google. The advertisements, called "Scroogled", attempt to make the case that Google is "screwing" consumers with search results rigged to favor Google's paid advertisers, that Gmail violates the privacy of its users to place ad results related to the content of their emails and shopping results, which favor Google products. Tech publications like TechCrunch have been highly critical of the advertising campaign,[187] while Google employees have embraced it.[188]

Layoffs

Main article: Criticism of Microsoft

In July 2014, Microsoft announced plans to lay off 18,000 employees. Microsoft employed 127,104 people as of June 5, 2014, making this about a 14 percent reduction of its workforce as the biggest Microsoft lay off ever. This included 12,500 professional and factory personnel. Previously, Microsoft had eliminated 5,800 jobs in 2009 in line with the Great Recession of 2008–2017.[189][190] In September 2014, Microsoft laid off 2,100 people, including 747 people in the Seattle–Redmond area, where the company is headquartered. The firings came as a second wave of the layoffs that were previously announced. This brought the total number to over 15,000 out of the 18,000 expected cuts.[191] In October 2014, Microsoft revealed that it was almost done with the elimination of 18,000 employees, which was its largest-ever layoff sweep.[192] In July 2015, Microsoft announced another 7,800 job cuts in the next several months.[193] In May 2016, Microsoft announced another 1,850 job cuts mostly in its Nokia mobile phone division. As a result, the company will record an impairment and restructuring charge of approximately $950  million, of which approximately $200  million will relate to severance payments.[194]

United States government

Main article: Criticism of Microsoft

Microsoft provides information about reported bugs in their software to intelligence agencies of the United States government, prior to the public release of the fix. A Microsoft spokesperson has stated that the corporation runs several programs that facilitate the sharing of such information with the U.S. government.[195] Following media reports about PRISM, NSA's massive electronic surveillance program, in May 2013, several technology companies were identified as participants, including Microsoft.[196] According to leaks of said program, Microsoft joined the PRISM program in 2007.[197] However, in June 2013, an official statement from Microsoft flatly denied their participation in the program:

"We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis. In addition, we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers. If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data, we don't participate in it."[198]

During the first six months of 2013, Microsoft received requests that affected between 15,000 and 15,999 accounts.[199] In December 2013, the company made statement to further emphasize the fact that they take their customers' privacy and data protection very seriously, even saying that "government snooping potentially now constitutes an 'advanced persistent threat,' alongside sophisticated malware and cyber attacks".[200] The statement also marked the beginning of three-part program to enhance Microsoft's encryption and transparency efforts. On July 1, 2014, as part of this program they opened the first (of many) Microsoft Transparency Center, which provides "participating governments with the ability to review source code for our key products, assure themselves of their software integrity, and confirm there are no "back doors."[201] Microsoft has also argued that the United States Congress should enact strong privacy regulations to protect consumer data.[202]

In April 2016, the company sued the U.S. government, argued that secrecy orders were preventing the company from disclosing warrants to customers in violation of the company's and customers' rights. Microsoft argued that it was unconstitutional for the government to indefinitely ban Microsoft from informing its users that the government was requesting their emails and other documents and that the Fourth Amendment made it so people or businesses had the right to know if the government searches or seizes their property. On October 23, 2017, Microsoft said it would drop the lawsuit as a result of a policy change by the United States Department of Justice (DoJ). The DoJ had "changed data request rules on alerting the Internet users about agencies accessing their information."

Corporate identity

Corporate culture

Technical references for developers and articles for various Microsoft magazines such as Microsoft Systems Journal (MSJ) are available through the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN). MSDN also offers subscriptions for companies and individuals, and the more expensive subscriptions usually offer access to pre-release beta versions of Microsoft software.[203][204] In April 2004, Microsoft launched a community site for developers and users, titled Channel 9, that provides a wiki and an Internet forum.[205] Another community site that provides daily videocasts and other services, On10.net, launched on March 3, 2006.[206] Free technical support is traditionally provided through online Usenet newsgroups, and CompuServe in the past, monitored by Microsoft employees; there can be several newsgroups for a single product. Helpful people can be elected by peers or Microsoft employees for Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) status, which entitles them to a sort of special social status and possibilities for awards and other benefits.[207]

Noted for its internal lexicon, the expression "eating your own dog food" is used to describe the policy of using pre-release and beta versions of products inside Microsoft in an effort to test them in "real-world" situations.[208] This is usually shortened to just "dog food" and is used as a noun, verb, and adjective. Another bit of jargon, FYIFV or FYIV ("Fuck You, I'm [Fully] Vested"), is used by an employee to indicate they are financially independent and can avoid work anytime they wish.[209]

Microsoft is an outspoken opponent of the cap on H-1B visas, which allows companies in the U.S. to employ certain foreign workers. Bill Gates claims the cap on H1B visas makes it difficult to hire employees for the company, stating "I'd certainly get rid of the H1B cap" in 2005.[210] Critics of H1B visas argue that relaxing the limits would result in increased unemployment for U.S. citizens due to H1B workers working for lower salaries.[211] The Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index, a report of how progressive the organization deems company policies towards LGBT employees, rated Microsoft as 87% from 2002 to 2004 and as 100% from 2005 to 2010 after they allowed gender expression.[212]

In August 2018, Microsoft implemented a policy for all companies providing subcontractors to require 12 weeks of paid parental leave to each employee. This expands on the former requirement from 2015 requiring 15 days of paid vacation and sick leave each year.[213] In 2015, Microsoft established its own parental leave policy to allow 12 weeks off for parental leave with an additional 8 weeks for the parent who gave birth.[214]

Environment

In 2011, Greenpeace released a report rating the top ten big brands in cloud computing on their sources of electricity for their data centers. At the time, data centers consumed up to 2% of all global electricity, and this amount was projected to increase. Phil Radford of Greenpeace said "we are concerned that this new explosion in electricity use could lock us into old, polluting energy sources instead of the clean energy available today,"[215] and called on "Amazon, Microsoft and other leaders of the information-technology industry must embrace clean energy to power their cloud-based data centers."[216] In 2013, Microsoft agreed to buy power generated by a Texas wind project to power one of its data centers.[217] Microsoft is ranked on the 17th place in Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics (16th Edition) that ranks 18 electronics manufacturers according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling, and climate change.[218] Microsoft's timeline for phasing out brominated flame retardant (BFRs) and phthalates in all products is 2012 but its commitment to phasing out PVC is not clear. As of January 2011, it has no products that are completely free from PVC and BFRs.[219]

Microsoft's main U.S. campus received a silver certification from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program in 2008, and it installed over 2,000 solar panels on top of its buildings at its Silicon Valley campus, generating approximately 15 percent of the total energy needed by the facilities in April 2005.[220] Microsoft makes use of alternative forms of transit. It created one of the world's largest private bus systems, the "Connector", to transport people from outside the company; for on-campus transportation, the "Shuttle Connect" uses a large fleet of hybrid cars to save fuel. The company also subsidizes regional public transport, provided by Sound Transit and King County Metro, as an incentive.[220][221] In February 2010, however, Microsoft took a stance against adding additional public transport and high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to the State Route 520 and its floating bridge connecting Redmond to Seattle; the company did not want to delay the construction any further.[222] Microsoft was ranked number 1 in the list of the World's Best Multinational Workplaces by the Great Place to Work Institute in 2011.[223] In January 2020, the company promised the carbon dioxide removal of all carbon that it has emitted since its foundation in 1975.[224] On October 9, 2020, Microsoft permanently allowed remote work.[225] In January 2021, the company announced on Twitter to join the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact, which engages the cloud infrastructure and data centers industries to reach carbon neutrality in Europe by 2030.

Headquarters

 
The west campus of the Microsoft Redmond campus

The corporate headquarters, informally known as the Microsoft Redmond campus, is located at One Microsoft Way in Redmond, Washington. Microsoft initially moved onto the grounds of the campus on February 26, 1986, weeks before the company went public on March 13. The headquarters has since experienced multiple expansions since its establishment. It is estimated to encompass over 8 million ft2 (750,000 m2) of office space and 30,000–40,000 employees.[226] Additional offices are located in Bellevue and Issaquah, Washington (90,000 employees worldwide). The company is planning to upgrade its Mountain View, California, campus on a grand scale. The company has occupied this campus since 1981. In 2016, the company bought the 32-acre (13 ha) campus, with plans to renovate and expand it by 25%.[227] Microsoft operates an East Coast headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.[228]

Flagship stores

 
Microsoft's Toronto flagship store

On October 26, 2015, the company opened its retail location on Fifth Avenue in New York City. The location features a five-story glass storefront and is 22,270 square feet.[229] As per company executives, Microsoft had been on the lookout for a flagship location since 2009.[230] The company's retail locations are part of a greater strategy to help build a connection with its consumers. The opening of the store coincided with the launch of the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4.[231] On November 12, 2015, Microsoft opened a second flagship store, located in Sydney's Pitt Street Mall.[232]

Microsoft adopted the so-called "Pac-Man Logo," designed by Scott Baker, in 1987. Baker stated "The new logo, in Helvetica italic typeface, has a slash between the o and s to emphasize the "soft" part of the name and convey motion and speed."[233] Dave Norris ran an internal joke campaign to save the old logo, which was green, in all uppercase, and featured a fanciful letter O, nicknamed the blibbet, but it was discarded.[234] Microsoft's logo with the tagline "Your potential. Our passion."—below the main corporate name—is based on a slogan Microsoft used in 2008. In 2002, the company started using the logo in the United States and eventually started a television campaign with the slogan, changed from the previous tagline of "Where do you want to go today?"[235][236][237] During the private MGX (Microsoft Global Exchange) conference in 2010, Microsoft unveiled the company's next tagline, "Be What's Next."[238] They also had a slogan/tagline "Making it all make sense."[239]

On August 23, 2012, Microsoft unveiled a new corporate logo at the opening of its 23rd Microsoft store in Boston, indicating the company's shift of focus from the classic style to the tile-centric modern interface, which it uses/will use on the Windows Phone platform, Xbox 360, Windows 8 and the upcoming Office Suites.[240] The new logo also includes four squares with the colors of the then-current Windows logo which have been used to represent Microsoft's four major products: Windows (blue), Office (red), Xbox (green) and Bing (yellow).[241] The logo also resembles the opening of one of the commercials for Windows 95.[242][243]

  • Microsoft logo history
  •  

    1975–1980: First Microsoft logo, in 1975

  •  

    1980–1982: Second Microsoft logo, in 1980

  •  

    1982–1987: Third Microsoft logo, in 1982

  •  

    1987–2012: Microsoft "Pac-Man" logo, designed by Scott Baker and used from 1987 to 2012[235][236]

  •  

    2012–present: Fifth Microsoft logo, introduced on August 23, 2012[244]

Sponsorship

 
Toyota Yaris WRC

The company was the official jersey sponsor of Finland's national basketball team at EuroBasket 2015.[245]

The company was a major sponsor of the Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT (2017-2020).

The company was a sponsor of the Renault F1 Team (2016-2020).

Philanthropy

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Microsoft's president, Brad Smith, announced that an initial batch of supplies, including 15,000 protection goggles, infrared thermometers, medical caps, and protective suits, was donated to Seattle, with further aid to come soon.[246]

During 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Microsoft started monitoring cyberattacks on behalf of the Russian government and Russia-backed hackers. In June 2022, Microsoft published the report on Russian cyber attacks, and concluded that state-backed Russian hackers "have engaged in "strategic espionage" against governments, think tanks, businesses and aid groups" in 42 countries supporting Kyiv.[247]

Controversies

Main articles: Microsoft litigation and Criticism of Microsoft

Criticism of Microsoft has followed various aspects of its products and business practices. Frequently criticized are the ease of use, robustness, and security of the company's software. They've also been criticized for the use of permatemp employees (employees employed for years as "temporary," and therefore without medical benefits), the use of forced retention tactics, which means that employees would be sued if they tried to leave.[248] Historically, Microsoft has also been accused of overworking employees, in many cases, leading to burnout within just a few years of joining the company. The company is often referred to as a "Velvet Sweatshop", a term which originated in a 1989 Seattle Times article,[249] and later became used to describe the company by some of Microsoft's own employees.[250] This characterization is derived from the perception that Microsoft provides nearly everything for its employees in a convenient place, but in turn overworks them to a point where it would be bad for their (possibly long-term) health.

As reported by several news outlets,[251][252] an Irish subsidiary of Microsoft based in the Republic of Ireland declared £220 bn in profits but paid no corporation tax for the year 2020. This is due to the company being tax resident in Bermuda as mentioned in the accounts for 'Microsoft Round Island One, a subsidiary that collects license fees from the use of Microsoft software worldwide. Dame Margaret Hodge, a Labour MP in the UK said, "It is unsurprising – yet still shocking – that massively wealthy global corporations openly, unashamedly and blatantly refuse to pay tax on the profits they make in the countries where they undertake business".[252]

In 2020, ProPublica reported that the company had diverted more than $39 billion in U.S. profits to Puerto Rico using a mechanism structured to make it seem as if the company was unprofitable on paper. As a result, the company paid a tax rate on those profits of "nearly 0%." When the Internal Revenue Service audited these transactions, ProPublica reported that Microsoft aggressively fought back, including successfully lobbying Congress to change the law to make it harder for the agency to conduct audits of large corporations.[253][254]

"Embrace, extend, and extinguish" (EEE),[255] also known as "embrace, extend, and exterminate",[256] is a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice found[257] that was used internally by Microsoft[258] to describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences to strongly disadvantage competitors. Microsoft is frequently accused of using anticompetitive tactics and abusing its monopolistic power. People who use their products and services often end up becoming dependent on them, a process is known as vendor lock-in.

Microsoft was the first company to participate in the PRISM surveillance program, according to leaked NSA documents obtained by The Guardian[259] and The Washington Post[260] in June 2013, and acknowledged by government officials following the leak.[261] The program authorizes the government to secretly access data of non-US citizens hosted by American companies without a warrant. Microsoft has denied participation in such a program.[262]

Jesse Jackson believes Microsoft should hire more minorities and women. In 2015, he praised Microsoft for appointing two women to its board of directors.[263]

Licensing arrangements for service providers

The Microsoft Services Provider License Agreement, or SPLA, is a mechanism by which service providers and independent software vendors (ISVs), who license Microsoft products on a monthly basis, are able to provide software services and hosting services to end-users. The SPLA can be customized to suit the solution being offered and the customers using it.[264]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Microsoft Corporation Form 10-K". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. July 28, 2022. pp. 8, 57, 59.
  2. ^ "Fortune 500 list of companies 2020". Fortune. Retrieved August 19, 2020.
  3. ^ "U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission – Linkedin". US SEC. December 8, 2016. from the original on October 18, 2017. Retrieved April 29, 2018. As a result of the Merger, a change in control of [Linkedin] occurred and [Linkedin] became a wholly-owned subsidiary of [Microsoft]. The transaction resulted in the payment of approximately $26.4 billion in cash merger consideration.
  4. ^ "Microsoft confirms takeover of Skype". BBC. May 10, 2011. from the original on June 20, 2018. Retrieved April 29, 2018.
  5. ^ Keizer, Gregg (July 14, 2014). "Microsoft gets real, admits its device share is just 14%". Computerworld. International Data Group. from the original on August 21, 2016. [Microsoft's chief operating officer] Turner's 14% came from a new forecast released last week by Gartner, which estimated Windows' share of the shipped device market last year was 14% and would decrease slightly to 13.7% in 2014. [..] Android will dominate, Gartner said, with a 48% share this year
  6. ^ Blodget, Henry (August 23, 2013). "And Microsoft Is Giving Up On The Software Business!". Business Insider Australia. from the original on August 2, 2017. Retrieved August 2, 2017.
  7. ^ "Notify The Next Of Kin". InformationWeek. June 30, 2010. from the original on April 24, 2014. Retrieved April 24, 2014.
  8. ^ "Microsoft sees shares hit record high". BBC. October 21, 2016. from the original on October 16, 2017. Retrieved October 7, 2017.
  9. ^ "Microsoft's cloud focus could mean yet more layoffs". Engadget. from the original on August 2, 2017. Retrieved October 7, 2017.
  10. ^ "How did Microsoft just overtake Apple as the world's most valuable company?". NBC News. from the original on November 29, 2018. Retrieved November 28, 2018.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i Allan, Roy A. (2001). A History of the Personal Computer. Allan Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9689108-0-1. Retrieved July 17, 2010.
  12. ^ "Bill Gates". Biography.com. from the original on November 6, 2016. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
  13. ^ "Microsoft Company History". from the original on August 6, 2013. Retrieved March 20, 2013.
  14. ^ Finucane, Martin (December 30, 2008). . Boston.com. The New York Times Company. Archived from the original on January 1, 2009.
  15. ^ a b c "Bill Gates: A Timeline". BBC News Online. BBC. July 15, 2006. from the original on June 22, 2006. Retrieved July 17, 2010.
  16. ^ Schlender, Brent (October 2, 1995). "Bill Gates & Paul Allen Talk Check Out The Ultimate Buddy Act in Business History". Fortune. Time Inc. from the original on May 3, 2011. Retrieved April 25, 2011.
  17. ^ Allen, Paul (2011). Paul Allen: Idea Man. Penguin Group. p. 91. ISBN 978-0-14-196938-1.
  18. ^ Staples, Betsy (August 1984). "Kay Nishi bridges the cultural gap". Creative Computing. 10 (8): 192. from the original on May 11, 2011. Retrieved July 15, 2010.
  19. ^ Dyar, Dafydd Neal (November 4, 2002). . Computer Source. Archived from the original on September 1, 2006. Retrieved July 14, 2010.
  20. ^ Engines That Move Markets: Technology Investing from Railroads to the Internet and Beyond. John Wiley & Sons. 2002. ISBN 978-0-471-20595-1. from the original on March 23, 2019. Retrieved February 8, 2018.
  21. ^ . Smart Computing. Sandhills Publishing Company. 6 (3). March 2002. Archived from the original on April 5, 2004. Retrieved August 18, 2008.
  22. ^ Blaxill, Mark; Eckardt, Ralph (2009). The Invisible Edge: Taking Your Strategy to the Next Level Using Intellectual Property. Portfolio. p. 210. ISBN 978-1-59184-237-8. from the original on March 23, 2019. Retrieved February 8, 2018.
  23. ^ . The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on November 4, 2016. Retrieved January 4, 2018.
  24. ^ Wingfield, Nick; Guth, Robert A. (March 30, 2011). "Microsoft Co-Founder Hits Out at Gates". The Wall Street Journal.
  25. ^ O'Connor, Clare. "10 Things You Didn't Know About Microsoft Billionaire Paul Allen, Seattle Seahawks Owner". Forbes. from the original on February 2, 2018. Retrieved February 1, 2018.
  26. ^ . April 10, 2010. Archived from the original on April 10, 2010. Retrieved August 9, 2017.
  27. ^ a b . CBS News. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on November 5, 2008. Retrieved August 5, 2010.
  28. ^ Bick, Julie (May 29, 2005). "The Microsoft Millionaires Come of Age". The New York Times. from the original on April 12, 2006. Retrieved July 3, 2006.
  29. ^ "U.S. v. Microsoft: Timeline". Wired. Condé Nast. November 4, 2002. from the original on April 19, 2010. Retrieved July 17, 2010.
  30. ^ Thurrott, Paul (January 24, 2003). . winsupersite.com. Penton Media. Archived from the original on June 4, 2010. Retrieved July 15, 2010.
  31. ^ Athow, Desire (May 22, 2010). "Microsoft Windows 3.0 Is 20 Years Old Today!!!". ITProPortal. from the original on March 25, 2012. Retrieved April 4, 2012.
  32. ^ Miller, Michael (August 1, 1998). "OS Market Share 1993–2001 – Windows 98 Put to the Test". PC Magazine. Ziff Davis. from the original on May 11, 2011. Retrieved July 3, 2010.
  33. ^ McCracken, Harry (September 13, 2000). . PC World. IDG. Archived from the original on May 6, 2009. Retrieved July 4, 2006.
  34. ^ "Competitive Impact Statement : U.S. v. Microsoft Corporation". Justice.gov. from the original on May 10, 2011. Retrieved May 11, 2011.
  35. ^ Borland, John (April 15, 2003). . CNET. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on November 16, 2011. Retrieved July 16, 2010.
  36. ^ Strebe, Matthew (February 20, 2006). Network Security Foundations: Technology Fundamentals for IT Success. ISBN 9780782151367. from the original on March 23, 2019. Retrieved March 16, 2019.
  37. ^ Cope, Jim (March 1996). . Smart Computing. Sandhills Publishing Company. 4 (3). Archived from the original on July 6, 2004. Retrieved July 16, 2010.
  38. ^ Pietrek, Matt (March 1996). Windows 95 Programming Secrets. IDG. ISBN 978-1-56884-318-6. Retrieved July 17, 2010.
  39. ^ Thurrott, Paul (May 19, 2005). . Supersite for Windows. Penton Media. Archived from the original on May 23, 2010. Retrieved July 17, 2010.
  40. ^ Edwards, Benj (August 24, 2020)."Windows 95 Turns 25: When Windows Went Mainstream." January 5, 2021, at the Wayback Machine How To Geek. Retrieved November 29, 2020.
  41. ^ Chew, Jonathan (August 24, 2015). "Microsoft Launched This Product 20 Years Ago and Changed the World." October 21, 2020, at the Wayback Machine Fortune. Retrieved November 29, 2020.
  42. ^ Wild, Chris (August 24, 2015)."Aug. 24, 1995: Launching Windows 95." November 27, 2020, at the Wayback Machine Mashable. Retrieved November 29, 2020.
  43. ^ . Marketplace. American Public Media. July 15, 1996. Archived from the original on August 23, 2004.
  44. ^ Tilly, Chris. "The History of Microsoft Windows CE". HPC:Factor. from the original on September 21, 2008. Retrieved August 18, 2008.
  45. ^ Markoff, John (June 20, 2002). "Fears of Misuse of Encryption System Are Voiced". The New York Times. from the original on May 11, 2011. Retrieved July 7, 2010.
  46. ^ Stajano, Frank (2003). "Security for whom? The shifting security assumptions of pervasive computing". Software Security — Theories and Systems (PDF). Software Security—Theories and Systems. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 2609. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. pp. 16–27. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.127.7219. doi:10.1007/3-540-36532-X_2. ISBN 978-3-540-00708-1. (PDF) from the original on January 28, 2011. Retrieved July 6, 2010.
  47. ^ "United States v. Microsoft". U.S. Department of Justice. from the original on August 4, 2005. Retrieved August 5, 2005.
  48. ^ Jackson, Thomas Penfield (November 5, 1999). "U.S. vs. Microsoft findings of fact". U.S. Department of Justice. from the original on August 15, 2010. Retrieved August 18, 2008.
  49. ^ Thurrott, Paul (October 26, 2001). "WinInfo Short Takes: Windows XP Launch Special Edition". Windows IT Pro. Penton Media. Archived from the original on May 26, 2012. Retrieved July 16, 2010.
  50. ^ (Press release). Port Washington, New York: The NPD Group. February 7, 2002. Archived from the original on August 14, 2004. Retrieved January 28, 2015.
  51. ^ . CNN. March 25, 2004. Archived from the original on April 13, 2006. Retrieved August 14, 2010.
  52. ^ "Commission Decision of 24.03.2004 relating to a proceeding under Article 82 of the EC Treaty (Case COMP/C-3/37.792 Microsoft)" (PDF). Commission of the European Communities. April 21, 2004. from the original on October 11, 2007. Retrieved August 5, 2005.
  53. ^ Morris, Game Over is a weekly column by Chris. "Microsoft sets price for Xbox 360—Aug. 17, 2005". money.cnn.com. from the original on April 25, 2018. Retrieved January 4, 2018.
  54. ^ "A Microsoft Milestone: Hardware Celebrates 25 Years of Proven Success". Stories. August 22, 2007.
  55. ^ Wee, Gerald (November 10, 2005). "Steve Ballmer on management style". ITWorld. IDG. CIO Asia. from the original on May 14, 2011. Retrieved January 29, 2011.
  56. ^ Vamosi, Robert (January 23, 2007). "Windows Vista Ultimate review". CNET. CBS Interactive. from the original on April 6, 2012. Retrieved April 4, 2012.
  57. ^ Ricadela, Aaron (February 14, 2006). "Gates Says Security Is Job One For Vista". InformationWeek. UBM TechWeb. from the original on March 18, 2012. Retrieved April 4, 2012.
  58. ^ . Edinburgh Evening News. Johnston Press. April 27, 2007. Archived from the original on August 4, 2020. Retrieved February 1, 2009.
  59. ^ McCormick, John (2011). European Union Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 340. ISBN 978-0-230-57707-7.
  60. ^ . Google News. Agence France-Presse. February 27, 2008. Archived from the original on April 30, 2008. Retrieved June 1, 2008.
  61. ^ "Microsoft, Multi-core and the Data Center". from the original on April 6, 2013. Retrieved March 18, 2013.
  62. ^ Conte, Natali Del (June 15, 2006). "Bill Gates Announces Resignation". PC Magazine. Ziff Davis. from the original on April 20, 2010. Retrieved July 17, 2010.
  63. ^ Beaumont, Claudine (June 27, 2008). "Bill Gates steps down as Microsoft head to concentrate on philanthropy". The Telegraph. from the original on March 13, 2016. Retrieved January 9, 2016.
  64. ^ Fried, Ina (October 27, 2008). "Microsoft launches Windows Azure". CNET. CBS Interactive. from the original on May 10, 2011. Retrieved July 6, 2010.
  65. ^ Fried, Ina (February 12, 2009). "Microsoft follows Apple into the retail business". CNET. CBS Interactive. from the original on May 10, 2011. Retrieved July 17, 2010.
  66. ^ Gaynor, Tim (October 22, 2009). "Long lines as Microsoft opens retail store". Reuters. Thomson Reuters. from the original on February 4, 2011. Retrieved July 3, 2010.
  67. ^ Mintz, Jessica (October 22, 2009). "Windows 7 operating system makes its debut". NBCNews.com. NBCUniversal. Associated Press. Retrieved April 4, 2012.
  68. ^ "Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 7 partners - Oct. 11, 2010". money.cnn.com.
  69. ^ Lecrenski, Nick; Watson, Karli; Fonseca-Ensor, Robert (2010). Beginning Windows Phone 7 Application Development: Building Windows Phone Applications Using Silverlight and XNA. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-470-91233-1.
  70. ^ Helal, Abdelsalam A.; Helal, Sumi; Bose, Raja; Li, Wendong (2012). Mobile Platforms and Development Environments. Morgan & Claypool Publishers. p. 33. ISBN 978-1-60845-866-0.
  71. ^ Baker, Rosie (February 11, 2011). "Nokia to partner with Microsoft under new structure".
  72. ^ Warren, Tom (September 19, 2012). "HTC rekindles its old Microsoft romance and bets on Windows Phone 8". The Verge.
  73. ^ Erickson, David (March 21, 2011). . Openflow.org. Archived from the original on March 26, 2011. Retrieved May 29, 2011.
  74. ^ ""Google and other titans form Open Networking Foundation." Noyes, March 23, 2011". Computerworld. IDG. March 23, 2011. from the original on April 6, 2011. Retrieved May 29, 2011.
  75. ^ "Windows Phone 7 Series UI Design & Interaction Guide". March 18, 2010. from the original on May 27, 2013. Retrieved October 9, 2010.
  76. ^ "Microsoft releases final test version of Windows 8". Business Line. Kasturi & Sons. June 1, 2012. from the original on August 28, 2012. Retrieved August 4, 2012.
  77. ^ Rosoff, Matt (January 5, 2011). "OK, So Windows 8 Is Coming To ARM Tablets ... Someday (MSFT)". San Francisco Chronicle. from the original on June 29, 2011. Retrieved January 5, 2011.
  78. ^ Sullivan, Mark (June 18, 2012). "Microsoft Announces New 'Surface' Tablet PC". PCWorld. from the original on February 8, 2013. Retrieved June 19, 2012.
  79. ^ a b Eichenwald, Kurt, "Microsoft's Lost Decade: How Microsoft Lost Its Mojo" August 16, 2013, at the Wayback Machine, Vanity Fair, August 2012
  80. ^ Acohido, Byron (June 25, 2012). "Microsoft buys Internet startup Yammer for $1.2 billion". USA Today. Gannett Company. from the original on June 26, 2012. Retrieved June 25, 2012.
  81. ^ Thurrott, Paul (July 31, 2012). . Supersite for Windows. Penton Media. Archived from the original on August 3, 2012. Retrieved August 1, 2012.
  82. ^ . Microsoft. August 8, 2012. Archived from the original on November 7, 2013.
  83. ^ Venkatesan, Adithya; Mukherjee, Supantha; Leske, Nicola (July 16, 2012). "Comcast buys Microsoft stake in MSNBC.com". Reuters. from the original on February 13, 2015. Retrieved February 13, 2015.
  84. ^ Rigby, Bill (October 1, 2012). "Microsoft launching news operation, new MSN". Reuters. from the original on October 2, 2012. Retrieved October 1, 2012.
  85. ^ "Windows 8's delivery date: October 26". ZDNet. July 18, 2012. from the original on September 19, 2012. Retrieved September 17, 2012.
  86. ^ "Mary Jo Foley: Windows Phone 8 launch date revealed". LiveSide.net. August 30, 2012. from the original on November 3, 2012. Retrieved November 27, 2012.
  87. ^ "Microsoft prepping for complete brand and product line relaunch, New York store coming the 26th". wpcentral.com. October 2, 2012. from the original on November 2, 2012. Retrieved November 3, 2012.
  88. ^ "Microsoft launches 'Patent Tracker' to help you search its library of intellectual property". The Next Web. March 28, 2013. from the original on March 31, 2013. Retrieved March 29, 2013.
  89. ^ Parascandola, Rocco; Moore, Tina. "NYPD unveils new $40 million supercomputer system that uses data from a network of cameras, license plate readers and crime reports". New York Daily News. Retrieved June 15, 2019.
  90. ^ Pierce, David (May 21, 2013). "The all-seeing Kinect: tracking my face, arms, body, and heart on the Xbox One". The Verge. Vox Media. from the original on June 7, 2013. Retrieved May 28, 2013.
  91. ^ "Funky Friday: More than $32 billion in Microsoft stock value wiped out | Microsoft—CNET News". News.cnet.com. from the original on August 22, 2013. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
  92. ^ "Microsoft's sweeping reorganization shifts focus to services, devices". July 11, 2013. from the original on October 26, 2013. Retrieved October 28, 2013.
  93. ^ "Microsoft buying Nokia's phone business in a $7.2 billion bid for its mobile future". September 3, 2013. from the original on September 29, 2017. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  94. ^ "Microsoft names insider Amy Hood as CFO". Reuters. Reuters.com. May 8, 2013. from the original on April 9, 2014. Retrieved April 18, 2014.
  95. ^ "Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months". August 23, 2013. from the original on August 23, 2013.
  96. ^ David, Javier E (February 5, 2014). . NBCNews.com. NBCUniversal. Archived from the original on February 5, 2014.
  97. ^ Edwards, Breanna. "John W. Thompson to Become 1st Black Chairman of Microsoft". The Root. from the original on February 2, 2018. Retrieved February 1, 2018.
  98. ^ "Microsoft to close its acquisition of Nokia's devices and services business on April 25". The Economic Times. April 22, 2014. from the original on August 5, 2016. Retrieved May 25, 2016.
  99. ^ Borges, Andre (April 21, 2014). "Nokia phone division to be renamed Microsoft Mobile, reveals leaked letter". dna. from the original on October 15, 2016. Retrieved May 25, 2016.
  100. ^ Hutchinson, Lee (September 15, 2014). "It's official: Microsoft acquires Mojang and Minecraft for $2.5 billion". Ars Technica. from the original on September 19, 2014. Retrieved September 19, 2014.
  101. ^ Dellinger, AJ (June 8, 2017). "Microsoft Buys Cybersecurity Company Hexadite To Respond To Cyberattacks". International Business Times. from the original on June 8, 2017. Retrieved June 9, 2017.
  102. ^ "Microsoft agrees to buy U.S.-Israeli cyber firm Hexadite". Reuters. June 8, 2017. from the original on June 9, 2017. Retrieved June 9, 2017.
  103. ^ Frumusanu, Ian Cutress, Andrei. "Microsoft at MWC 2015: Lumia 640 and 640 XL Announced, 4K 120Hz Surface Hub Demoed". from the original on September 27, 2015. Retrieved September 27, 2015.
  104. ^ Howse, Brett (July 29, 2015). "Windows 10 Launches Worldwide". AnandTech. from the original on June 24, 2016. Retrieved May 25, 2016.
  105. ^ (Press release). Gartner. May 27, 2015. Archived from the original on June 14, 2015. Retrieved July 28, 2015.
  106. ^ Howley, Daniel (May 25, 2016). "Microsoft needs to change its mobile strategy or get out". Yahoo! Tech. from the original on May 27, 2016. Retrieved May 26, 2016.
  107. ^ a b Greene, Jay (May 25, 2016). "Microsoft to Streamline Smartphone Hardware Business". The Wall Street Journal. from the original on May 25, 2016. Retrieved May 25, 2016.
  108. ^ Stuart, Keith (March 2016). "Microsoft to unify PC and Xbox One platforms, ending fixed console hardware". The Guardian. from the original on December 17, 2016. Retrieved December 12, 2016.
  109. ^ Mehdi, Yusuf (January 24, 2017). "Announcing Intune for Education & new Windows 10 PCs for school starting at $189". The Official Microsoft Blog. from the original on January 25, 2017. Retrieved January 25, 2017.
  110. ^ Frederic Lardinois (January 24, 2017). "Microsoft launches Intune for Education to counter Google's Chromebooks in schools". TechCrunch. from the original on January 25, 2017. Retrieved January 25, 2017.
  111. ^ "Microsoft announces new data protection tool to help enterprises secure their data". Tech Crunch. June 22, 2016. from the original on June 22, 2016. Retrieved June 23, 2016.
  112. ^ . Archived from the original on November 25, 2016. Retrieved November 24, 2016.
  113. ^ . Lock SSL. Archived from the original on February 2, 2017. Retrieved November 24, 2016.
  114. ^ Warren, Tom (November 11, 2016). "Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation, 15 years after Ballmer called it 'cancer'". The Verge. Vox Media. from the original on August 16, 2017. Retrieved August 18, 2017.
  115. ^ Andy Weir (January 24, 2017). "Microsoft introduces Intune for Education, promising simple setup and management of devices". Neowin. from the original on January 27, 2017. Retrieved January 25, 2017.
  116. ^ a b c d e f g h "Microsoft's 2018, part 1: Open source, wobbly Windows and everyone's going to the cloud". The Register. from the original on January 3, 2019. Retrieved January 3, 2019.
  117. ^ "Microsoft to acquire GitHub for $7.5 billion". Microsoft. June 4, 2018. from the original on June 4, 2018.
  118. ^ . www.msn.com. Archived from the original on January 12, 2019. Retrieved April 10, 2019.
  119. ^ Hackett, Robert (August 21, 2018). "Microsoft Offers Free Cybersecurity Tools to Political Candidates—But You've Got to Be a Microsoft Customer". from the original on August 22, 2018. Retrieved August 24, 2018.
  120. ^ Lerman, Rachel (August 20, 2018). "Microsoft releases new security tools for political campaigns to combat hacking attempts". The Seattle Times. from the original on August 24, 2018. Retrieved August 24, 2018.
  121. ^ "Google goes bilingual, Facebook fleshes out translation and TensorFlow is dope—And, Microsoft is assisting fish farmers in Japan". The Register. from the original on September 2, 2018. Retrieved September 2, 2018.
  122. ^ "Microsoft has signed up to the Open Invention Network. We repeat. Microsoft has signed up to the OIN". The Register. from the original on October 11, 2018. Retrieved October 14, 2018.
  123. ^ "See this, Google? Microsoft happy to take a half-billion in sweet, sweet US military money to 'increase lethality'". The Register. from the original on November 30, 2018. Retrieved November 30, 2018.
  124. ^ a b "Microsoft's 2018, part 2: Azure data centers heat up and Windows 10? It burns! It burns!". The Register. from the original on January 4, 2019. Retrieved January 3, 2019.
  125. ^ "Microsoft announces Project Mu, an open-source release of the UEFI core". December 20, 2018. from the original on December 21, 2018. Retrieved December 22, 2018.
  126. ^ Microsoft expands political security service to 12 European countries February 20, 2019, at the Wayback Machine, Reuters (February 20, 2019)
  127. ^ Wong, Julia Carrie (February 22, 2019). "'We won't be war profiteers': Microsoft workers protest $480m army contract". The Guardian. from the original on February 23, 2019. Retrieved February 23, 2019.
  128. ^ "Microsoft Stock Reacts To 'Head-Scratcher' Acquisition". Investor's Business Daily. March 27, 2020. Retrieved March 30, 2020.
  129. ^ "Microsoft announces agreement to acquire Affirmed Networks to deliver new opportunities for a global 5G ecosystem". The Official Microsoft Blog. March 26, 2020. Retrieved March 30, 2020.
  130. ^ "Microsoft is closing its retail stores around the world indefinitely because of the coronavirus crisis". Business Insider. Retrieved March 17, 2020.
  131. ^ "Bringing More Players Into Our Gaming Vision". Microsoft. June 22, 2020. Retrieved August 17, 2020.
  132. ^ Jacobs, Jennifer; Mohsin, Saleha; Leonard, Jenny (July 31, 2020). "Trump to Order China's ByteDance to Sell TikTok in U.S." Bloomberg.com. Retrieved August 3, 2020.
  133. ^ Davidson, Helen (August 3, 2020). "TikTok sale: Trump approves Microsoft's plan but says US should get a cut of any deal". The Guardian. Retrieved August 3, 2020.
  134. ^ "Microsoft cuts xCloud iOS testing early as its future on Apple devices remains unclear". The Verge. August 5, 2020. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
  135. ^ Ruppert, Liana (September 21, 2020). "Microsoft Acquires Bethesda, The Studio Behind Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Doom, And More". Game Informer. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  136. ^ Kim, Matt T.M. (March 10, 2021). "Microsoft's ZeniMax Acquisition Officially Complete, Bethesda Now a Part of Xbox". IGN. Retrieved March 10, 2021.
  137. ^ "Form 10-K". SEC. June 30, 2021. p. 39. Retrieved August 7, 2021.
  138. ^ Hao, Karen (September 23, 2020). "OpenAI is giving Microsoft exclusive access to its GPT-3 language model". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved September 26, 2020. On September 22, Microsoft announced that it would begin exclusively licensing GPT-3, the world’s largest language model, built by San Francisco–based OpenAI.
  139. ^ "MICROSOFT GETS EXCLUSIVE ACCESS TO AI DEEMED 'TOO DANGEROUS TO RELEASE'". Independent. September 23, 2020. Archived from the original on May 14, 2022. Retrieved September 24, 2020.
  140. ^ "The all-new Xbox Series X | Xbox". Xbox.com. Retrieved December 2, 2020.
  141. ^ Reuters Staff (April 12, 2021). "Microsoft to buy AI firm Nuance Communications for about $16 billion in healthcare push". Reuters. Retrieved April 12, 2021.
  142. ^ "Microsoft Completes Acquisition of Nuance". FinSMEs. March 5, 2022. Retrieved March 6, 2022.
  143. ^ Tilley, Aaron (April 27, 2021). "Microsoft Sales Show Strong Growth in Gaming, Cloud". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  144. ^ Tilley, Aaron (March 27, 2020). "One Business Winner Amid Coronavirus Lockdowns: the Cloud". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  145. ^ "FY21 Q2 - Press Releases - Investor Relations - Microsoft". www.microsoft.com. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  146. ^ "Microsoft has officially announced Windows 11!". Windows Central. June 24, 2021. Retrieved June 24, 2021.
  147. ^ "Windows 11 available on October 5". Windows Experience Blog. August 31, 2021. Retrieved October 20, 2021.
  148. ^ Lundun, Ingrid (September 10, 2021). "Microsoft acquires TakeLessons, an online and in-person tutoring platform, to ramp up its edtech play". TechCrunch. Retrieved December 18, 2022.
  149. ^ Anthony Spadafora (October 22, 2021). "Microsoft Teams calls are getting a major security upgrade". Tech Radar. Retrieved October 22, 2021.
  150. ^ Ron Miller; Alex Wilhelm (October 7, 2021). "Microsoft acquires Ally.io, OKR startup that raised $76 million". Tech Crunch. Retrieved November 12, 2021.
  151. ^ a b Warren, Tom (January 18, 2022). "Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion". The Verge. Retrieved January 18, 2022.
  152. ^ Anne, Melissa (January 19, 2022). "Microsoft just bought Warcraft creator Activision-Blizzard for $69 billion - MEGPlay". Retrieved January 19, 2022.
  153. ^ Patnaik, Subrat; Mukherjee, Supantha (January 19, 2022). "Microsoft to gobble up Activision in $69 billion metaverse bet". Reuters. Retrieved January 20, 2022.
  154. ^ Tedder, Michael. "Microsoft Purchases Activision Blizzard; Plans To Dominates The Metaverse". TheStreet. Retrieved January 20, 2022.
  155. ^ Tilley, Cara Lombardo, Kirsten Grind and Aaron (January 18, 2022). "WSJ News Exclusive | Microsoft to Buy Activision Blizzard in All-Cash Deal Valued at $75 Billion". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved January 20, 2022.
  156. ^ Kendall, Ryan Tracy and Brent (February 1, 2022). "Microsoft-Activision Deal to Be Reviewed by Federal Trade Commission". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved February 1, 2022.
  157. ^ Clinch, Matt; Kharpal, Arjun (December 12, 2022). "Microsoft buys near 4% stake in London Stock Exchange Group as part of 10-year cloud deal". CNBC.
  158. ^ "Microsoft Leadership". Microsoft. March 20, 2017. Retrieved July 31, 2020.
  159. ^ "Microsoft Corporation Corporate Governance". Microsoft. Retrieved July 31, 2020.
  160. ^ Tilley, Aaron (March 13, 2020). "Bill Gates to Leave Boards of Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway". Wall Street Journal – via www.wsj.com.
  161. ^ Tilley, Aaron (January 13, 2022). "Microsoft Board to Review Company's Sexual Harassment and Gender Discrimination Policies". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved January 14, 2022.
  162. ^ . ZenoBank. AlphaTrade. September 29, 2009. Archived from the original on October 30, 2008. Retrieved September 29, 2009.
  163. ^ Monkman, Carol Smith (March 14, 1986). "Microsoft stock is red hot on first trading day". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Hearst Seattle Media, LLC. p. B9. from the original on February 21, 2010. Retrieved July 18, 2010.
  164. ^ "MSFT stock performance and split info". Morningstar, Inc. from the original on May 10, 2011. Retrieved July 17, 2010.
  165. ^ a b . Microsoft. Archived from the original (xls) on October 10, 2009. Retrieved August 18, 2008.
  166. ^ a b . Microsoft. Archived from the original on July 20, 2008. Retrieved August 18, 2008.
  167. ^ . Yahoo Finance. Archived from the original on January 23, 2008. Retrieved December 13, 2008.
  168. ^ "Microsoft sells $2.25  billion of debt at low rates". Reuters. February 4, 2011. from the original on November 7, 2015. Retrieved July 1, 2017.
  169. ^ Arthur, Charles (April 28, 2011). "Microsoft falls behind Apple for the first time in 20 years". The Guardian. London. from the original on October 19, 2013. Retrieved May 11, 2011.
  170. ^ "When Will Microsoft's Internet Bloodbath End?". Techcrunch.com. April 29, 2011. from the original on May 10, 2011. Retrieved May 11, 2011.
  171. ^ White, Martha. . Archived from the original on July 20, 2012. Retrieved July 20, 2012.
  172. ^ "Microsoft Overview". Marketwatch. from the original on February 2, 2014. Retrieved February 2, 2014.
  173. ^ "Global Top 100 Companies". PWC. from the original on February 12, 2014. Retrieved February 2, 2014.
  174. ^ "Microsoft Surpasses Exxon as 2nd Most Valuable Co". AssociatedPress. from the original on May 2, 2015. Retrieved November 14, 2014.
  175. ^ "Untaxed U.S. corporate profits held overseas top $2.1 trillion: study". Reuters. April 9, 2014. from the original on November 14, 2015. Retrieved July 1, 2017.
  176. ^ a b c d "Microsoft Investor Relations—Annual Reports". www.microsoft.com. from the original on November 7, 2018. Retrieved November 7, 2018.
  177. ^ "Microsoft wins $480M military contract to outfit soldiers with HoloLens AR tech". TechCrunch. from the original on November 29, 2018. Retrieved November 29, 2018.
  178. ^ "Welcome to Microsoft Canada". Microsoft. Retrieved September 9, 2020.
  179. ^ Bishop, Todd (January 27, 2004). "Studies on Linux help their patron: Microsoft". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Hearst Seattle Media, LLC. from the original on December 5, 2010. Retrieved July 16, 2010.
  180. ^ Foley, Mary Jo (March 24, 2004). "Yankee Independently Pits Windows TCO vs. Linux TCO". eWeek. Archived from the original on January 4, 2013. Retrieved July 14, 2010.
  181. ^ Jaques, Robert (February 13, 2006). . vnunet.com. Archived from the original on July 24, 2008. Retrieved August 18, 2008.
  182. ^ Mason, Rowena (September 10, 2008). "Seven-hour LSE blackout caused by double glitch". The Telegraph. London. from the original on December 25, 2017. Retrieved April 3, 2018.
  183. ^ "London Stock Exchange trading hit by technical glitch". BBC News Online. BBC. November 26, 2009. from the original on July 26, 2013. Retrieved September 30, 2010.
  184. ^ Williams, David M. (October 8, 2009). "London Stock Exchange gets the facts and dumps Windows for Linux". ITWire. from the original on July 16, 2011. Retrieved September 30, 2010.
  185. ^ "London Stock Exchange Rejects .NET For Open Source". Slashdot. October 6, 2009. from the original on August 11, 2011. Retrieved September 30, 2010.
  186. ^ Wingfield, Nick (December 14, 2012). "Microsoft Battles Google by Hiring Political Brawler Mark Penn". The New York Times. from the original on March 12, 2017. Retrieved February 19, 2017.
  187. ^ "Scroogled: Why So Negative, Microsoft?". TechCrunch. February 10, 2013. from the original on March 17, 2014. Retrieved April 18, 2014.
  188. ^ Hill, Kashmir (November 21, 2013). "Googlers Love Microsoft's 'Scroogled' Gear. Mug and Shirts Sell Out". Forbes. from the original on July 29, 2017. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  189. ^ "Microsoft to cut up to 18,000 jobs over next year". July 17, 2014. from the original on July 27, 2014. Retrieved July 17, 2014.
  190. ^ "Microsoft Layoffs Greater Than Expected: Up to 18,000 Jobs Being Cut". Gamespot. July 17, 2014. from the original on July 22, 2014. Retrieved August 10, 2014.
  191. ^ By Alex Wilhelm, TechCrunch. "Lays Off 2,100 More Employees August 4, 2020, at the Wayback Machine." September 18, 2014. September 18, 2014.
  192. ^ Perez, Juan Carlos (October 29, 2014). "Microsoft is 'almost' done with its largest-ever layoff sweep". Computerworld. International Data Group. from the original on November 4, 2014. Retrieved November 10, 2014.
  193. ^ Souppouris, Aaron. "Microsoft plans 7,800 layoffs, $7.8 billion Nokia write-down". from the original on July 11, 2015. Retrieved July 8, 2014.
  194. ^ "Microsoft announces streamlining of smartphone hardware business". from the original on December 2, 2016. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
  195. ^ "U.S. Agencies Said to Swap Data With Thousands of Firms". Bloomberg. June 15, 2013. from the original on January 12, 2015. Retrieved March 10, 2017.
  196. ^ Neal, Ryan W. (July 11, 2013). "Snowden Reveals Microsoft PRISM Cooperation: Helped NSA Decrypt Emails, Chats, Skype Conversations". International Business Times. from the original on December 3, 2013. Retrieved November 15, 2013.
  197. ^ Greenwald, Glenn; MacAskill, Ewen (June 7, 2013). "NSA Prism program taps into user data of Apple, Google and others". The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited. from the original on August 18, 2006. Retrieved April 26, 2014.
  198. ^ Johnson, Kevin; Martin, Scott; O'Donnell, Jayne; Winter, Michael (June 15, 2013). "Reports: NSA Siphons Data from 9 Major Net Firms". USA Today. from the original on June 7, 2013. Retrieved June 6, 2013.
  199. ^ "Microsoft, Facebook, Google and Yahoo release US surveillance requests". The Guardian. February 3, 2014. from the original on January 6, 2017. Retrieved December 12, 2016.
  200. ^ Smith, Brad (December 4, 2013). "Protecting customer data from government snooping". The Official Microsoft Blog. from the original on December 24, 2014. Retrieved January 1, 2015.
  201. ^ Thomlinson, Matt (July 1, 2014). "Advancing our encryption and transparency efforts". Microsoft on the Issues. from the original on January 1, 2015. Retrieved January 1, 2015.
  202. ^ Heiner, David. "Request for Comment: Big Data and Consumer Privacy in the Internet Economy" (PDF). National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Microsoft. (PDF) from the original on August 14, 2014. Retrieved August 12, 2014.
  203. ^ "MSDN Subscription FAQ". Microsoft. from the original on January 12, 2009. Retrieved July 3, 2006.
  204. ^ . Microsoft. April 15, 2004. Archived from the original on July 25, 2008. Retrieved August 18, 2008.
  205. ^ Hobson, Neville (April 11, 2005). . WebProNews. iEntry Inc. Archived from the original on April 20, 2008. Retrieved July 3, 2006.
  206. ^ . Microsoft. Archived from the original on April 28, 2006. Retrieved May 4, 2006.
  207. ^ Bray, Hiawatha (June 13, 2005). . The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on March 22, 2009. Retrieved July 3, 2006.
  208. ^ . ZDNet. CBS Interactive. July 21, 2003. Archived from the original on January 8, 2007. Retrieved October 9, 2005.
  209. ^ Heilemann, John (November 2000). "The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But The Truth". Wired. Condé Nast. from the original on July 24, 2008. Retrieved September 30, 2007.
  210. ^ Mark, Roy (April 27, 2005). "Gates Rakes Congress on H1B Visa Cap". internetnews.com. from the original on June 10, 2008. Retrieved August 18, 2008.
  211. ^ "Bill Gates Targets Visa Rules for Tech Workers". NPR. March 12, 2008. from the original on April 24, 2010. Retrieved July 6, 2010.
  212. ^ . Human Rights Campaign Foundation. Archived from the original on July 3, 2010. Retrieved July 17, 2010.
  213. ^ Dreyfuss, Emily (August 31, 2018). "Will Others Follow Microsoft's Lead on Paid Parental Leave?". WIRED. from the original on September 1, 2018. Retrieved September 1, 2018.
  214. ^ Kastrenakes, Jacob (August 31, 2018). "Microsoft says its US contractors must offer paid parental leave". The Verge. from the original on September 1, 2018. Retrieved September 1, 2018.
  215. ^ "Dirty Data Report Card" (PDF). Greenpeace. (PDF) from the original on September 10, 2013. Retrieved August 22, 2013.
  216. ^ "Amazon, Microsoft: Let's keep 'the cloud' clean" December 4, 2013, at the Wayback Machine, Phil Radford
  217. ^ "Microsoft looks to boost eco credentials with wind-powered data centre" January 6, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, Suzanne Goldenberg
  218. ^ . Greenpeace International. Archived from the original on March 31, 2012. Retrieved April 3, 2012.
  219. ^ "Ranking tables October 2010 – Greenpeace International" (PDF). Greenpeace International. (PDF) from the original on January 28, 2011. Retrieved January 24, 2011.
  220. ^ a b Mills, Elinor (June 6, 2008). "Microsoft vs. Google: Who's greener?". CNET. CBS Interactive. Retrieved July 3, 2010.
  221. ^ . Microsoft. Archived from the original on May 1, 2008.
  222. ^ . King5 Television News. February 23, 2010. Archived from the original on February 26, 2010. Retrieved July 3, 2010.
  223. ^ Tu, Janet I. (October 28, 2011). "Microsoft Pri0 | Microsoft named best multinational workplace". Seattle Times Newspaper. from the original on July 11, 2012. Retrieved November 3, 2011.
  224. ^ "Microsoft will be carbon negative by 2030". Official Microsoft Blog. January 16, 2020.
  225. ^ Ciaccia, Chris (October 9, 2020). "Microsoft's work-from-home policy to become permanent". FOX Business.
  226. ^ Fast Facts About Microsoft August 9, 2007, at the Wayback Machine. Microsoft.com. Retrieved on August 25, 2013.
  227. ^ Nagel, Allison (January 25, 2016). "Microsoft To Buy, Expand Mountain View Campus". Bisnow Media. from the original on February 4, 2019. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
  228. ^ . safway.com. Archived from the original on March 29, 2017. Retrieved March 28, 2017.
  229. ^ "Your First Look at Microsoft's Massive New Flagship Store". Wired. Condé Nast. October 26, 2015. from the original on October 27, 2015. Retrieved October 27, 2015.
  230. ^ Morris, Keiko (October 26, 2015). "Microsoft Opens Flagship Store on Fifth Avenue". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. from the original on October 26, 2015. Retrieved October 27, 2015.
  231. ^ "Microsoft opens the doors to its New York City flagship store". The Verge. October 26, 2015. from the original on October 26, 2015. Retrieved October 27, 2015.
  232. ^ Chanthadavong, Aimee (April 21, 2015). "Microsoft to open a flagship store in Sydney". ZDNet. from the original on January 1, 2016. Retrieved December 30, 2015.
  233. ^ Jha, Lakshman (2008). Customer Relationship Management: A Strategic Approach. Global India Publications. p. 218. ISBN 978-81-907211-2-7. from the original on March 23, 2019. Retrieved May 1, 2015.
  234. ^ Osterman, Larry (July 14, 2005). "Remember the blibbet". Larry Osterman's WebLog. Microsoft. from the original on August 3, 2008. Retrieved October 17, 2020.
  235. ^ a b "The Rise and Rise of the Redmond Empire". Wired. Condé Nast. December 1998. from the original on November 6, 2012. Retrieved August 18, 2008.
  236. ^ a b Schmelzer, Randi (January 9, 2006). "McCann Thinks Local for Global Microsoft". Adweek. from the original on August 28, 2012. Retrieved August 18, 2008.
  237. ^ Reimer, Jeremy (January 23, 2006). "Microsoft set to launch new marketing campaign". Ars Technica. Condé Nast Digital. from the original on September 18, 2008. Retrieved August 18, 2008.
  238. ^ Topolsky, Joshua (July 22, 2010). "New Microsoft brand logos, company tagline revealed at MGX event? (update: no new logos, the tagline is a go)". Engadget. AOL. from the original on August 16, 2012. Retrieved August 2, 2012.
  239. ^ InfoWorld Media Group, Inc. (1991). InfoWorld. InfoWorld Media Group, Inc. p. 26. from the original on March 23, 2019. Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  240. ^ Meisner, Jeffrey (August 23, 2012). . The Official Microsoft Blog. Archived from the original on August 25, 2012. Retrieved August 23, 2012.
  241. ^ Eric, Steven H. (August 23, 2012). . Flapship.com. Archived from the original on August 25, 2012. Retrieved August 23, 2012.
  242. ^ "Microsoft's new logo has ties to the past". August 23, 2012. from the original on September 21, 2013. Retrieved September 13, 2012.
  243. ^ "Microsoft's logo is not new, it's from 1995". from the original on July 28, 2013. Retrieved September 13, 2012.
  244. ^ . Microsoft. August 2012. Archived from the original on August 25, 2012. Retrieved August 23, 2012.
  245. ^ Finland | EuroBasket 2015 September 28, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, FIBA.com, Retrieved September 27, 2015.
  246. ^ "Tech billionaires including Tim Cook, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg promised 18 million masks to fight COVID-19". Business Insider. Retrieved March 23, 2020.
  247. ^ "Microsoft: Russian Cyber Spying Targets 42 Ukraine Allies". VOA. Retrieved July 12, 2022.
  248. ^ . Archived from the original on May 2, 2007.
  249. ^ Andrews, Paul (April 23, 1989). "A 'Velvet Sweatshop' or a High-Tech Heaven?". The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on June 29, 2012.
  250. ^ . Microsoft. Archived from the original on February 14, 2007. Retrieved September 27, 2005.
  251. ^ Hancock, Ciarán. "Irish-registered subsidiary of Microsoft records $314bn profit". The Irish Times. Retrieved June 3, 2021.
  252. ^ a b Neate, Rupert (June 3, 2021). "Microsoft's Irish subsidiary paid zero corporation tax on £220bn profit". The Guardian. Retrieved June 3, 2021.
  253. ^ Doctorow, Cory (January 22, 2020). "The sordid tale of Microsoft's epic tax evasion and the war they waged against the IRS". Boing Boing. Retrieved February 15, 2022.
  254. ^ Kiel, Paul. "The IRS Decided to Get Tough Against Microsoft. Microsoft Got Tougher". ProPublica. Retrieved February 15, 2022.
  255. ^ "Deadly embrace". The Economist. March 30, 2000. from the original on May 23, 2018.
  256. ^ . Archived from the original on September 22, 2005. Retrieved March 31, 2006.
  257. ^ "US Department of Justice Proposed Findings of Fact—Revised" (PDF). Usdoj.gov. (PDF) from the original on April 19, 2000. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  258. ^ "US Department of Justice Proposed Findings of Fact". Usdoj.gov. August 14, 2015. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  259. ^ Greenwald, Glenn (June 6, 2013). "NSA taps in to internet giants' systems to mine user data, secret files reveal". The Guardian. London. from the original on August 18, 2006. Retrieved June 6, 2013.
  260. ^ Gellman, Barton; Poitras, Laura (June 6, 2013). "U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on June 9, 2013. Retrieved June 6, 2013.
  261. ^ Savage, Charlie; Wyatt, Edward; Baker, Peter (June 6, 2013). "U.S. says it gathers online data abroad". The New York Times. from the original on February 16, 2017. Retrieved February 18, 2017.
  262. ^ "Google, Facebook, Dropbox, Yahoo, Microsoft And Apple Deny Participation In NSA PRISM Surveillance Program". Tech Crunch. June 6, 2013. from the original on June 13, 2013. Retrieved June 6, 2013.
  263. ^ Gross, Ashley. . Archived from the original on December 8, 2015. Retrieved December 3, 2015.
  264. ^ "Licensing Options: Service Providers". Microsoft Volume Licensing. May 3, 2018. Retrieved February 16, 2022.

External links

  • Official website  
  • Business data for Microsoft Corporation:
    • Bloomberg
    • Google
    • Reuters
    • SEC filings
    • Yahoo!
  • Microsoft companies grouped at OpenCorporates

Coordinates: 47°38′23″N 122°7′42″W / 47.63972°N 122.12833°W / 47.63972; -122.12833

January 04, 2023
microsoft, corporation, american, multinational, technology, corporation, producing, computer, software, consumer, electronics, personal, computers, related, services, headquartered, campus, redmond, washington, best, known, software, products, windows, line, . Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software consumer electronics personal computers and related services Headquartered at the Microsoft campus in Redmond Washington Microsoft s best known software products are the Windows line of operating systems the Microsoft Office suite and the Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers Microsoft ranked No 21 in the 2020 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue 2 it was the world s largest software maker by revenue as of 2019 It is one of the Big Five American information technology companies alongside Alphabet Amazon Apple and Meta Microsoft CorporationBuilding 92 on the Microsoft Redmond campusTypePublicTraded asNasdaq MSFTNasdaq 100 componentDJIA componentS amp P 100 componentS amp P 500 componentISINUS5949181045IndustryInformation technologyFoundedApril 4 1975 47 years ago 1975 04 04 in Albuquerque New Mexico U S FoundersBill GatesPaul AllenHeadquartersOne Microsoft WayRedmond Washington U S Area servedWorldwideKey peopleSatya Nadella chairman and CEO Brad Smith vice chairman and president Bill Gates technical adviser ProductsSoftware developmentComputer hardwareConsumer electronicsSocial networking serviceCloud computingVideo gamesInternetCorporate venture capitalBrandsWindows Office Skype Visual Studio Bethesda Dynamics Xbox Minecraft SurfaceServicesAzure Bing LinkedIn Yammer Microsoft 365 OneDrive Outlook com GitHub Microsoft Store Windows Update Xbox Game Pass Xbox networkRevenueUS 198 3 billion 2022 Operating incomeUS 83 4 billion 2022 Net incomeUS 72 7 billion 2022 Total assetsUS 364 8 billion 2022 Total equityUS 166 5 billion 2022 Number of employees221 000 2022 DivisionsMicrosoft Research Xbox Game StudiosSubsidiariesGitHub LinkedIn Metaswitch Nuance Communications RiskIQ Skype Technologies Xamarin XandrWebsitemicrosoft comFootnotes referencesFinancials as of June 30 2022 update 1 Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4 1975 to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800 It rose to dominate the personal computer operating system market with MS DOS in the mid 1980s followed by Windows The company s 1986 initial public offering IPO and subsequent rise in its share price created three billionaires and an estimated 12 000 millionaires among Microsoft employees Since the 1990s it has increasingly diversified from the operating system market and has made a number of corporate acquisitions their largest being the acquisition of LinkedIn for 26 2 billion in December 2016 3 followed by their acquisition of Skype Technologies for 8 5 billion in May 2011 4 As of 2015 update Microsoft is market dominant in the IBM PC compatible operating system market and the office software suite market although it has lost the majority of the overall operating system market to Android 5 The company also produces a wide range of other consumer and enterprise software for desktops laptops tabs gadgets and servers including Internet search with Bing the digital services market through MSN mixed reality HoloLens cloud computing Azure and software development Visual Studio Steve Ballmer replaced Gates as CEO in 2000 and later envisioned a devices and services strategy 6 This unfolded with Microsoft acquiring Danger Inc in 2008 7 entering the personal computer production market for the first time in June 2012 with the launch of the Microsoft Surface line of tablet computers and later forming Microsoft Mobile through the acquisition of Nokia s devices and services division Since Satya Nadella took over as CEO in 2014 the company has scaled back on hardware and has instead focused on cloud computing a move that helped the company s shares reach its highest value since December 1999 8 9 Earlier dethroned by Apple in 2010 in 2018 Microsoft reclaimed its position as the most valuable publicly traded company in the world 10 In April 2019 Microsoft reached the trillion dollar market cap becoming the third U S public company to be valued at over 1 trillion after Apple and Amazon respectively As of 2022 update Microsoft has the fourth highest global brand valuation Microsoft has been criticized for its monopolistic practices and the company s software has been criticized for problems with ease of use robustness and security Contents 1 History 1 1 1972 1985 Founding 1 2 1985 1994 Windows and Office 1 3 1995 2007 Foray into the Web Windows 95 Windows XP and Xbox 1 4 2007 2011 Microsoft Azure Windows Vista Windows 7 and Microsoft Stores 1 5 2011 2014 Windows 8 8 1 Xbox One Outlook com and Surface devices 1 6 2014 2020 Windows 10 Microsoft Edge and HoloLens 1 7 2020 present Acquisitions Xbox Series X S and Windows 11 2 Corporate affairs 2 1 Board of directors 2 2 Chief executives 2 3 Financial 2 4 Subsidiaries 2 5 Marketing 2 6 Layoffs 2 7 United States government 3 Corporate identity 3 1 Corporate culture 3 2 Environment 3 3 Headquarters 3 4 Flagship stores 3 5 Logo 3 6 Sponsorship 3 7 Philanthropy 3 8 Controversies 4 Licensing arrangements for service providers 5 See also 6 References 7 External linksHistoryMain article History of Microsoft For a chronological guide see Timeline of Microsoft 1972 1985 Founding An Altair 8800 computer left with the popular Model 33 ASR Teletype as terminal paper tape reader and paper tape punch Paul Allen and Bill Gates on October 19 1981 after signing a pivotal contract with IBM 11 228 Childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen sought to make a business using their skills in computer programming 12 In 1972 they founded Traf O Data which sold a rudimentary computer to track and analyze automobile traffic data Gates enrolled at Harvard University while Allen pursued a degree in computer science at Washington State University though he later dropped out to work at Honeywell 13 The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics featured Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems s MITS Altair 8800 microcomputer 14 which inspired Allen to suggest that they could program a BASIC interpreter for the device Gates called MITS and claimed that he had a working interpreter and MITS requested a demonstration Allen worked on a simulator for the Altair while Gates developed the interpreter and it worked flawlessly when they demonstrated it to MITS in March 1975 in Albuquerque New Mexico MITS agreed to distribute it marketing it as Altair BASIC 11 108 112 114 Gates and Allen established Microsoft on April 4 1975 with Gates as CEO 15 and Allen suggested the name Micro Soft short for micro computer software 16 17 In August 1977 the company formed an agreement with ASCII Magazine in Japan resulting in its first international office of ASCII Microsoft 18 Microsoft moved its headquarters to Bellevue Washington in January 1979 15 Microsoft entered the operating system OS business in 1980 with its own version of Unix called Xenix 19 but it was MS DOS that solidified the company s dominance IBM awarded a contract to Microsoft in November 1980 to provide a version of the CP M OS to be used in the IBM Personal Computer IBM PC 20 For this deal Microsoft purchased a CP M clone called 86 DOS from Seattle Computer Products which it branded as MS DOS although IBM rebranded it to IBM PC DOS Microsoft retained ownership of MS DOS following the release of the IBM PC in August 1981 IBM had copyrighted the IBM PC BIOS so other companies had to reverse engineer it in order for non IBM hardware to run as IBM PC compatibles but no such restriction applied to the operating systems Microsoft eventually became the leading PC operating systems vendor 21 22 210 The company expanded into new markets with the release of the Microsoft Mouse in 1983 as well as with a publishing division named Microsoft Press 11 232 Paul Allen resigned from Microsoft in 1983 after developing Hodgkin s lymphoma 23 Allen claimed in Idea Man A Memoir by the Co founder of Microsoft that Gates wanted to dilute his share in the company when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin s disease because he did not think that he was working hard enough 24 Allen later invested in low tech sectors sports teams commercial real estate neuroscience private space flight and more 25 1985 1994 Windows and Office Windows 1 0 was released on November 20 1985 as the first version of the Windows line Microsoft released Windows on November 20 1985 as a graphical extension for MS DOS 11 242 243 246 despite having begun jointly developing OS 2 with IBM the previous August 26 Microsoft moved its headquarters from Bellevue to Redmond Washington on February 26 1986 and went public on March 13 27 with the resulting rise in stock making an estimated four billionaires and 12 000 millionaires from Microsoft employees 28 Microsoft released its version of OS 2 to original equipment manufacturers OEMs on April 2 1987 11 In 1990 the Federal Trade Commission examined Microsoft for possible collusion due to the partnership with IBM marking the beginning of more than a decade of legal clashes with the government 29 243 244 Meanwhile the company was at work on Microsoft Windows NT which was heavily based on their copy of the OS 2 code It shipped on July 21 1993 with a new modular kernel and the 32 bit Win32 application programming interface API making it easier to port from 16 bit MS DOS based Windows Microsoft informed IBM of Windows NT and the OS 2 partnership deteriorated 30 In 1990 Microsoft introduced the Microsoft Office suite which bundled separate applications such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel 11 301 On May 22 Microsoft launched Windows 3 0 featuring streamlined user interface graphics and improved protected mode capability for the Intel 386 processor 31 and both Office and Windows became dominant in their respective areas 32 33 On July 27 1994 the Department of Justice s Antitrust Division filed a competitive impact statement that said Beginning in 1988 and continuing until July 15 1994 Microsoft induced many OEMs to execute anti competitive per processor licenses Under a per processor license an OEM pays Microsoft a royalty for each computer it sells containing a particular microprocessor whether the OEM sells the computer with a Microsoft operating system or a non Microsoft operating system In effect the royalty payment to Microsoft when no Microsoft product is being used acts as a penalty or tax on the OEM s use of a competing PC operating system Since 1988 Microsoft s use of per processor licenses has increased 34 1995 2007 Foray into the Web Windows 95 Windows XP and Xbox In 1996 Microsoft released Windows CE a version of the operating system meant for personal digital assistants and other tiny computers shown here on the HP 300LX Following Bill Gates internal Internet Tidal Wave memo on May 26 1995 Microsoft began to redefine its offerings and expand its product line into computer networking and the World Wide Web 35 With a few exceptions of new companies like Netscape Microsoft was the only major and established company that acted fast enough to be a part of the World Wide Web practically from the start Other companies like Borland WordPerfect Novell IBM and Lotus being much slower to adapt to the new situation would give Microsoft a market dominance 36 The company released Windows 95 on August 24 1995 featuring pre emptive multitasking a completely new user interface with a novel start button and 32 bit compatibility similar to NT it provided the Win32 API 37 38 20 Windows 95 came bundled with the online service MSN which was at first intended to be a competitor to the Internet dubious discuss and for OEMs Internet Explorer a Web browser Internet Explorer has not bundled with the retail Windows 95 boxes because the boxes were printed before the team finished the Web browser and instead were included in the Windows 95 Plus pack 39 Backed by a high profile marketing campaign 40 and what The New York Times called the splashiest most frenzied most expensive introduction of a computer product in the industry s history 41 Windows 95 quickly became a success 42 Branching out into new markets in 1996 Microsoft and General Electric s NBC unit created a new 24 7 cable news channel MSNBC 43 Microsoft created Windows CE 1 0 a new OS designed for devices with low memory and other constraints such as personal digital assistants 44 In October 1997 the Justice Department filed a motion in the Federal District Court stating that Microsoft violated an agreement signed in 1994 and asked the court to stop the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows 11 323 324 Microsoft released the first installment in the Xbox series of consoles in 2001 The Xbox graphically powerful compared to its rivals featured a standard PC s 733 MHz Intel Pentium III processor On January 13 2000 Bill Gates handed over the CEO position to Steve Ballmer an old college friend of Gates and employee of the company since 1980 while creating a new position for himself as Chief Software Architect 11 111 228 15 Various companies including Microsoft formed the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance in October 1999 to among other things increase security and protect intellectual property through identifying changes in hardware and software Critics decried the alliance as a way to enforce indiscriminate restrictions over how consumers use software and over how computers behave and as a form of digital rights management for example the scenario where a computer is not only secured for its owner but also secured against its owner as well 45 46 On April 3 2000 a judgment was handed down in the case of United States v Microsoft Corp 47 calling the company an abusive monopoly 48 Microsoft later settled with the U S Department of Justice in 2004 27 On October 25 2001 Microsoft released Windows XP unifying the mainstream and NT lines of OS under the NT codebase 49 The company released the Xbox later that year entering the video game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo 50 In March 2004 the European Union brought antitrust legal action against the company citing it abused its dominance with the Windows OS resulting in a judgment of 497 million 613 million and requiring Microsoft to produce new versions of Windows XP without Windows Media Player Windows XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N 51 52 In November 2005 the company s second video game console the Xbox 360 was released There were two versions a basic version for 299 99 and a deluxe version for 399 99 53 Increasingly present in the hardware business following Xbox Microsoft 2006 released the Zune series of digital media players a successor of its previous software platform Portable Media Center These expanded on previous hardware commitments from Microsoft following its original Microsoft Mouse in 1983 as of 2007 the company sold the best selling wired keyboard Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 mouse IntelliMouse and desktop webcam LifeCam in the United States That year the company also launched the Surface digital table later renamed PixelSense 54 2007 2011 Microsoft Azure Windows Vista Windows 7 and Microsoft Stores CEO Steve Ballmer at the MIX event in 2008 In an interview about his management style in 2005 he mentioned that his first priority was to get the people he delegates to in order Ballmer also emphasized the need to continue pursuing new technologies even if initial attempts fail citing the original attempts with Windows as an example 55 Headquarters of the European Commission which has imposed several fines on Microsoft Released in January 2007 the next version of Windows Vista focused on features security and a redesigned user interface dubbed Aero 56 57 Microsoft Office 2007 released at the same time featured a Ribbon user interface which was a significant departure from its predecessors Relatively strong sales of both products helped to produce a record profit in 2007 58 The European Union imposed another fine of 899 million 1 4 billion for Microsoft s lack of compliance with the March 2004 judgment on February 27 2008 saying that the company charged rivals unreasonable prices for key information about its workgroup and backoffice servers 59 Microsoft stated that it was in compliance and that these fines are about the past issues that have been resolved 60 2007 also saw the creation of a multi core unit at Microsoft following the steps of server companies such as Sun and IBM 61 Gates retired from his role as Chief Software Architect on June 27 2008 a decision announced in June 2006 while retaining other positions related to the company in addition to being an advisor for the company on key projects 62 63 Azure Services Platform the company s entry into the cloud computing market for Windows launched on October 27 2008 64 On February 12 2009 Microsoft announced its intent to open a chain of Microsoft branded retail stores and on October 22 2009 the first retail Microsoft Store opened in Scottsdale Arizona the same day Windows 7 was officially released to the public Windows 7 s focus was on refining Vista with ease of use features and performance enhancements rather than an extensive reworking of Windows 65 66 67 As the smartphone industry boomed in the late 2000s Microsoft had struggled to keep up with its rivals in providing a modern smartphone operating system falling behind Apple and Google sponsored Android in the United States 68 As a result in 2010 Microsoft revamped their aging flagship mobile operating system Windows Mobile replacing it with the new Windows Phone OS that was released in October that year 69 70 It used a new user interface design language codenamed Metro which prominently used simple shapes typography and iconography utilizing the concept of minimalism Microsoft implemented a new strategy for the software industry providing a consistent user experience across all smartphones using the Windows Phone OS It launched an alliance with Nokia in 2011 and Microsoft worked closely with the company to co develop Windows Phone 71 but remained partners with long time Windows Mobile OEM HTC 72 Microsoft is a founding member of the Open Networking Foundation started on March 23 2011 Fellow founders were Google HP Networking Yahoo Verizon Communications Deutsche Telekom and 17 other companies This nonprofit organization is focused on providing support for a cloud computing initiative called Software Defined Networking 73 The initiative is meant to speed innovation through simple software changes in telecommunications networks wireless networks data centers and other networking areas 74 2011 2014 Windows 8 8 1 Xbox One Outlook com and Surface devices Surface Pro 3 part of the Surface series of laplets by Microsoft Following the release of Windows Phone Microsoft undertook a gradual rebranding of its product range throughout 2011 and 2012 with the corporation s logos products services and websites adopting the principles and concepts of the Metro design language 75 Microsoft unveiled Windows 8 an operating system designed to power both personal computers and tablet computers in Taipei in June 2011 76 A developer preview was released on September 13 which was subsequently replaced by a consumer preview on February 29 2012 and released to the public in May 77 The Surface was unveiled on June 18 becoming the first computer in the company s history to have its hardware made by Microsoft 78 79 On June 25 Microsoft paid US 1 2 billion to buy the social network Yammer 80 On July 31 they launched the Outlook com webmail service to compete with Gmail 81 On September 4 2012 Microsoft released Windows Server 2012 82 In July 2012 Microsoft sold its 50 stake in MSNBC which it had run as a joint venture with NBC since 1996 83 On October 1 Microsoft announced its intention to launch a news operation part of a new look MSN with Windows 8 later in the month 84 On October 26 2012 Microsoft launched Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface 79 85 Three days later Windows Phone 8 was launched 86 To cope with the potential for an increase in demand for products and services Microsoft opened a number of holiday stores across the U S to complement the increasing number of bricks and mortar Microsoft Stores that opened in 2012 87 On March 29 2013 Microsoft launched a Patent Tracker 88 In August 2012 the New York City Police Department announced a partnership with Microsoft for the development of the Domain Awareness System which is used for Police surveillance in New York City 89 The Xbox One console released in 2013 The Kinect a motion sensing input device made by Microsoft and designed as a video game controller first introduced in November 2010 was upgraded for the 2013 release of the Xbox One video game console Kinect s capabilities were revealed in May 2013 an ultra wide 1080p camera function in the dark due to an infrared sensor higher end processing power and new software the ability to distinguish between fine movements such as a thumb movement and determining a user s heart rate by looking at their face 90 Microsoft filed a patent application in 2011 that suggests that the corporation may use the Kinect camera system to monitor the behavior of television viewers as part of a plan to make the viewing experience more interactive On July 19 2013 Microsoft stocks suffered their biggest one day percentage sell off since the year 2000 after its fourth quarter report raised concerns among investors on the poor showings of both Windows 8 and the Surface tablet Microsoft suffered a loss of more than US 32 billion 91 In line with the maturing PC business in July 2013 Microsoft announced that it would reorganize the business into four new business divisions namely Operating systems Apps Cloud and Devices All previous divisions will be dissolved into new divisions without any workforce cuts 92 On September 3 2013 Microsoft agreed to buy Nokia s mobile unit for 7 billion 93 following Amy Hood taking the role of CFO 94 2014 2020 Windows 10 Microsoft Edge and HoloLens Satya Nadella succeeded Steve Ballmer as the CEO of Microsoft in February 2014 On February 4 2014 Steve Ballmer stepped down as CEO of Microsoft and was succeeded by Satya Nadella who previously led Microsoft s Cloud and Enterprise division 95 On the same day John W Thompson took on the role of chairman in place of Bill Gates who continued to participate as a technology advisor 96 Thompson became the second chairman in Microsoft s history 97 On April 25 2014 Microsoft acquired Nokia Devices and Services for 7 2 billion 98 This new subsidiary was renamed Microsoft Mobile Oy 99 On September 15 2014 Microsoft acquired the video game development company Mojang best known for Minecraft for 2 5 billion 100 On June 8 2017 Microsoft acquired Hexadite an Israeli security firm for 100 million 101 102 On January 21 2015 Microsoft announced the release of their first Interactive whiteboard Microsoft Surface Hub 103 On July 29 2015 Windows 10 was released 104 with its server sibling Windows Server 2016 released in September 2016 In Q1 2015 Microsoft was the third largest maker of mobile phones selling 33 million units 7 2 of all While a large majority at least 75 of them do not run any version of Windows Phone those other phones are not categorized as smartphones by Gartner in the same time frame 8 million Windows smartphones 2 5 of all smartphones were made by all manufacturers but mostly by Microsoft 105 Microsoft s share of the U S smartphone market in January 2016 was 2 7 106 During the summer of 2015 the company lost 7 6 billion related to its mobile phone business firing 7 800 employees 107 On March 1 2016 Microsoft announced the merger of its PC and Xbox divisions with Phil Spencer announcing that Universal Windows Platform UWP apps would be the focus for Microsoft s gaming in the future 108 On January 24 2017 Microsoft showcased Intune for Education at the BETT 2017 education technology conference in London 109 Intune for Education is a new cloud based application and device management service for the education sector 110 In May 2016 the company announced it was laying off 1 850 workers and taking an impairment and restructuring charge of 950 million 107 In June 2016 Microsoft announced a project named Microsoft Azure Information Protection It aims to help enterprises protect their data as it moves between servers and devices 111 In November 2016 Microsoft joined the Linux Foundation as a Platinum member during Microsoft s Connect developer event in New York 112 The cost of each Platinum membership is US 500 000 per year 113 Some analysts deemed this unthinkable ten years prior however as in 2001 then CEO Steve Ballmer called Linux cancer 114 Microsoft planned to launch a preview of Intune for Education in the coming weeks with general availability scheduled for spring 2017 priced at 30 per device or through volume licensing agreements 115 The Nokia Lumia 1320 the Microsoft Lumia 535 and the Nokia Lumia 530 which all run on one of the now discontinued Windows Phone operating systems In January 2018 Microsoft patched Windows 10 to account for CPU problems related to Intel s Meltdown security breach The patch led to issues with the Microsoft Azure virtual machines reliant on Intel s CPU architecture On January 12 Microsoft released PowerShell Core 6 0 for the macOS and Linux operating systems 116 In February 2018 Microsoft killed notification support for their Windows Phone devices which effectively ended firmware updates for the discontinued devices 116 In March 2018 Microsoft recalled Windows 10 S to change it to a mode for the Windows operating system rather than a separate and unique operating system In March the company also established guidelines that censor users of Office 365 from using profanity in private documents 116 In April 2018 Microsoft released the source code for Windows File Manager under the MIT License to celebrate the program s 20th anniversary In April the company further expressed willingness to embrace open source initiatives by announcing Azure Sphere as its own derivative of the Linux operating system 116 In May 2018 Microsoft partnered with 17 American intelligence agencies to develop cloud computing products The project is dubbed Azure Government and has ties to the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure JEDI surveillance program 116 On June 4 2018 Microsoft officially announced the acquisition of GitHub for 7 5 billion a deal that closed on October 26 2018 117 118 On July 10 2018 Microsoft revealed the Surface Go platform to the public Later in the month it converted Microsoft Teams to gratis 116 In August 2018 Microsoft released two projects called Microsoft AccountGuard and Defending Democracy It also unveiled Snapdragon 850 compatibility for Windows 10 on the ARM architecture 119 120 116 Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin using a Microsoft HoloLens mixed reality headset in September 2016 In August 2018 Toyota Tsusho began a partnership with Microsoft to create fish farming tools using the Microsoft Azure application suite for Internet of things IoT technologies related to water management Developed in part by researchers from Kindai University the water pump mechanisms use artificial intelligence to count the number of fish on a conveyor belt analyze the number of fish and deduce the effectiveness of water flow from the data the fish provide The specific computer programs used in the process fall under the Azure Machine Learning and the Azure IoT Hub platforms 121 In September 2018 Microsoft discontinued Skype Classic 116 On October 10 2018 Microsoft joined the Open Invention Network community despite holding more than 60 000 patents 122 In November 2018 Microsoft agreed to supply 100 000 Microsoft HoloLens headsets to the United States military in order to increase lethality by enhancing the ability to detect decide and engage before the enemy 123 In November 2018 Microsoft introduced Azure Multi Factor Authentication for Microsoft Azure 124 In December 2018 Microsoft announced Project Mu an open source release of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface UEFI core used in Microsoft Surface and Hyper V products The project promotes the idea of Firmware as a Service 125 In the same month Microsoft announced the open source implementation of Windows Forms and the Windows Presentation Foundation WPF which will allow for further movement of the company toward the transparent release of key frameworks used in developing Windows desktop applications and software December also saw the company discontinue the Microsoft Edge project in favor of Chromium backends for their browsers 124 On February 20 2019 Microsoft Corp said it will offer its cyber security service AccountGuard to 12 new markets in Europe including Germany France and Spain to close security gaps and protect customers in political space from hacking 126 In February 2019 hundreds of Microsoft employees protested the company s war profiteering from a 480 million contract to develop virtual reality headsets for the United States Army 127 2020 present Acquisitions Xbox Series X S and Windows 11 Main article Acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft On March 26 2020 Microsoft announced it was acquiring Affirmed Networks for about 1 35 billion 128 129 Due to the COVID 19 pandemic Microsoft closed all of its retail stores indefinitely due to health concerns 130 On July 22 2020 Microsoft announced plans to close its Mixer service planning to move existing partners to Facebook Gaming 131 On July 31 2020 it was reported that Microsoft was in talks to acquire TikTok after the Trump administration ordered ByteDance to divest ownership of the application to the U S 132 On August 3 2020 after speculation on the deal Donald Trump stated that Microsoft could buy the application however it should be completed by September 15 2020 and that the United States Department of the Treasury should receive a portion if it were to go through 133 On August 5 2020 Microsoft stopped its xCloud game streaming test for iOS devices According to Microsoft the future of xCloud on iOS remains unclear and potentially out of Microsoft s hands Apple has imposed a strict limit on remote desktop clients which means applications are only allowed to connect to a user owned host device or gaming console owned by the user 134 On September 21 2020 Microsoft announced its intent to acquire video game company ZeniMax Media the parent company of Bethesda Softworks for about 7 5 billion with the deal expected to occur in the second half of 2021 fiscal year 135 On March 9 2021 the acquisition was finalized and ZeniMax Media became part of Microsoft s Xbox Game Studios division 136 The total price of the deal was 8 1 billion 137 On September 22 2020 Microsoft announced that it had an exclusive license to use OpenAI s GPT 3 artificial intelligence language generator 138 The previous version of GPT 3 called GPT 2 made headlines for being too dangerous to release and had numerous capabilities including designing websites prescribing medication answering questions and penning articles 139 On November 10 2020 Microsoft released the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S video game consoles 140 In April 2021 Microsoft announced it would buy Nuance Communications for approximately 16 billion 141 The acquisition of Nuance was completed in March 2022 142 In 2021 in part due to the strong quarterly earnings spurred by the COVID 19 pandemic Microsoft s valuation came to near 2 trillion The increased necessity for remote work and distance education drove demand for cloud computing and grew the company s gaming sales 143 144 145 On June 24 2021 Microsoft announced Windows 11 during a Livestream The announcement came with confusion after Microsoft announced Windows 10 would be the last version of the operating system set to be released in the third quarter of 2021 146 It was released to the general public on October 5 2021 147 In early September 2021 it was announced that the company had acquired Takelessons an online platform which connects students and tutors in numerous subjects The acquisition positioned Microsoft to grow its presence in the market of providing an online education to large numbers of people 148 In October 2021 Microsoft announced that it began rolling out end to end encryption E2EE support for Microsoft Teams calls in order to secure business communication while using video conferencing software Users can ensure that their calls are encrypted and can utilize a security code that both parties on a call must verify on their respective ends 149 On October 7 Microsoft acquired Ally io a software service that measures companies progress against OKRs Microsoft plans to incorporate Ally io into its Viva family of employee experience products 150 On January 18 2022 Microsoft announced the acquisition of American video game developer and holding company Activision Blizzard in an all cash deal worth 68 7 billion 151 Activision Blizzard is best known for producing franchises including but not limited to Warcraft Diablo Call of Duty StarCraft Candy Crush Saga Crash Bandicoot Spyro the Dragon Skylanders and Overwatch 152 Activision and Microsoft each released statements saying the acquisition was to benefit their businesses in the metaverse many saw Microsoft s acquisition of video game studios as an attempt to compete against Meta Platforms with TheStreet referring to Microsoft wanting to become the Disney of the metaverse 153 154 Microsoft has not released statements regarding Activision s recent legal controversies regarding employee abuse but reports have alleged that Activision CEO Bobby Kotick a major target of the controversy will leave the company after the acquisition is finalized 155 The deal is expected to close in 2023 followed by a review from the US Federal Trade Commission 156 151 In December 2022 Microsoft announced a new 10 year deal with the London Stock Exchange for products including Microsoft Azure Microsoft acquired 4 of the latter company as part of the deal 157 Corporate affairsSee also Criticism of Microsoft Internet censorship in China and Embrace extend and extinguish Board of directors The company is run by a board of directors made up of mostly company outsiders as is customary for publicly traded companies Members of the board of directors as of July 2020 are Satya Nadella Reid Hoffman Hugh Johnston Teri List Stoll Sandi Peterson Penny Pritzker Charles Scharf Arne Sorenson John W Stanton John W Thompson Emma Walmsley and Padmasree Warrior 158 Board members are elected every year at the annual shareholders meeting using a majority vote system There are four committees within the board that oversee more specific matters These committees include the Audit Committee which handles accounting issues with the company including auditing and reporting the Compensation Committee which approves compensation for the CEO and other employees of the company the Governance and Nominating Committee which handles various corporate matters including the nomination of the board and the Regulatory and Public Policy Committee which includes legal antitrust matters along with privacy trade digital safety artificial intelligence and environmental sustainability 159 On March 13 2020 Gates announced that he is leaving the board of directors of Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway to focus more on his philanthropic efforts According to Aaron Tilley of The Wall Street Journal this is marking the biggest boardroom departure in the tech industry since the death of longtime rival and Apple Inc co founder Steve Jobs 160 On January 13 2022 The Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft s board of directors plans to hire an external law firm to review its sexual harassment and gender discrimination policies and to release a summary of how the company handled past allegations of misconduct against Bill Gates and other corporate executives 161 Chief executives Bill Gates 1975 2000 Steve Ballmer 2000 2014 Satya Nadella 2014 present Financial Five year history graph of Nasdaq MSFT stock on July 17 2013 162 When Microsoft went public and launched its initial public offering IPO in 1986 the opening stock price was 21 after the trading day the price closed at 27 75 As of July 2010 with the company s nine stock splits any IPO shares would be multiplied by 288 if one were to buy the IPO today given the splits and other factors it would cost about 9 cents 11 235 236 163 164 The stock price peaked in 1999 at around 119 60 928 adjusting for splits 165 The company began to offer a dividend on January 16 2003 starting at eight cents per share for the fiscal year followed by a dividend of sixteen cents per share the subsequent year switching from yearly to quarterly dividends in 2005 with eight cents a share per quarter and a special one time payout of three dollars per share for the second quarter of the fiscal year 165 166 Though the company had subsequent increases in dividend payouts the price of Microsoft s stock remained steady for years 166 167 Standard amp Poor s and Moody s Investors Service have both given a AAA rating to Microsoft whose assets were valued at 41 billion as compared to only 8 5 billion in unsecured debt Consequently in February 2011 Microsoft released a corporate bond amounting to 2 25 billion with relatively low borrowing rates compared to government bonds 168 For the first time in 20 years Apple Inc surpassed Microsoft in Q1 2011 quarterly profits and revenues due to a slowdown in PC sales and continuing huge losses in Microsoft s Online Services Division which contains its search engine Bing Microsoft profits were 5 2 billion while Apple Inc profits were 6 billion on revenues of 14 5 billion and 24 7 billion respectively 169 Microsoft s Online Services Division has been continuously loss making since 2006 and in Q1 2011 it lost 726 million This follows a loss of 2 5 billion for the year 2010 170 On July 20 2012 Microsoft posted its first quarterly loss ever despite earning record revenues for the quarter and fiscal year with a net loss of 492 million due to a writedown related to the advertising company aQuantive which had been acquired for 6 2 billion back in 2007 171 As of January 2014 Microsoft s market capitalization stood at 314B 172 making it the 8th largest company in the world by market capitalization 173 On November 14 2014 Microsoft overtook ExxonMobil to become the second most valuable company by market capitalization behind only Apple Inc Its total market value was over 410B with the stock price hitting 50 04 a share the highest since early 2000 174 In 2015 Reuters reported that Microsoft Corp had earnings abroad of 76 4 billion which were untaxed by the Internal Revenue Service Under U S law corporations don t pay income tax on overseas profits until the profits are brought into the United States 175 Year Revenuein mil US 176 Net incomein mil US 176 Total Assetsin mil US 176 Employees 176 2005 39 788 12 254 70 815 61 0002006 44 282 12 599 69 597 71 0002007 51 122 14 065 63 171 79 0002008 60 420 17 681 72 793 91 0002009 58 437 14 569 77 888 93 0002010 62 484 18 760 86 113 89 0002011 69 943 23 150 108 704 90 0002012 73 723 16 978 121 271 94 0002013 77 849 21 863 142 431 99 0002014 86 833 22 074 172 384 128 0002015 93 580 12 193 174 472 118 0002016 91 154 20 539 193 468 114 0002017 96 571 25 489 250 312 124 0002018 110 360 16 571 258 848 131 0002019 125 843 39 240 286 556 144 1062020 143 015 44 281 301 311 163 0002021 168 088 61 271 333 779 181 0002022 198 270 72 738 364 840 221 000In November 2018 the company won a 480 million military contract with the U S government to bring augmented reality AR headset technology into the weapon repertoires of American soldiers The two year contract may result in follow on orders of more than 100 000 headsets according to documentation describing the bidding process One of the contract s tag lines for the augmented reality technology seems to be its ability to enable 25 bloodless battles before the 1st battle suggesting that actual combat training is going to be an essential aspect of the augmented reality headset capabilities 177 Subsidiaries Microsoft is an international business As such it needs subsidiaries present in whatever national markets it chooses to harvest An example is Microsoft Canada which it established in 1985 178 Other countries have similar installations to funnel profits back up to Redmond and to distribute the dividends to the holders of MSFT stock Marketing Windows 8 Launch Event in Akihabara Tokyo on October 25 2012 In 2004 Microsoft commissioned research firms to do independent studies comparing the total cost of ownership TCO of Windows Server 2003 to Linux the firms concluded that companies found Windows easier to administrate than Linux thus those using Windows would administrate faster resulting in lower costs for their company i e lower TCO 179 This spurred a wave of related studies a study by the Yankee Group concluded that upgrading from one version of Windows Server to another costs a fraction of the switching costs from Windows Server to Linux although companies surveyed noted the increased security and reliability of Linux servers and concern about being locked into using Microsoft products 180 Another study released by the Open Source Development Labs claimed that the Microsoft studies were simply outdated and one sided and their survey concluded that the TCO of Linux was lower due to Linux administrators managing more servers on average and other reasons 181 As part of the Get the Facts campaign Microsoft highlighted the NET Framework trading platform that it had developed in partnership with Accenture for the London Stock Exchange claiming that it provided five nines reliability After suffering extended downtime and unreliability 182 183 the London Stock Exchange announced in 2009 that it was planning to drop its Microsoft solution and switch to a Linux based one in 2010 184 185 In 2012 Microsoft hired a political pollster named Mark Penn whom The New York Times called famous for bulldozing his political opponents 186 as Executive Vice president Advertising and Strategy Penn created a series of negative advertisements targeting one of Microsoft s chief competitors Google The advertisements called Scroogled attempt to make the case that Google is screwing consumers with search results rigged to favor Google s paid advertisers that Gmail violates the privacy of its users to place ad results related to the content of their emails and shopping results which favor Google products Tech publications like TechCrunch have been highly critical of the advertising campaign 187 while Google employees have embraced it 188 Layoffs Main article Criticism of Microsoft In July 2014 Microsoft announced plans to lay off 18 000 employees Microsoft employed 127 104 people as of June 5 2014 making this about a 14 percent reduction of its workforce as the biggest Microsoft lay off ever This included 12 500 professional and factory personnel Previously Microsoft had eliminated 5 800 jobs in 2009 in line with the Great Recession of 2008 2017 189 190 In September 2014 Microsoft laid off 2 100 people including 747 people in the Seattle Redmond area where the company is headquartered The firings came as a second wave of the layoffs that were previously announced This brought the total number to over 15 000 out of the 18 000 expected cuts 191 In October 2014 Microsoft revealed that it was almost done with the elimination of 18 000 employees which was its largest ever layoff sweep 192 In July 2015 Microsoft announced another 7 800 job cuts in the next several months 193 In May 2016 Microsoft announced another 1 850 job cuts mostly in its Nokia mobile phone division As a result the company will record an impairment and restructuring charge of approximately 950 million of which approximately 200 million will relate to severance payments 194 United States government Main article Criticism of MicrosoftMicrosoft provides information about reported bugs in their software to intelligence agencies of the United States government prior to the public release of the fix A Microsoft spokesperson has stated that the corporation runs several programs that facilitate the sharing of such information with the U S government 195 Following media reports about PRISM NSA s massive electronic surveillance program in May 2013 several technology companies were identified as participants including Microsoft 196 According to leaks of said program Microsoft joined the PRISM program in 2007 197 However in June 2013 an official statement from Microsoft flatly denied their participation in the program We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so and never on a voluntary basis In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don t participate in it 198 During the first six months of 2013 Microsoft received requests that affected between 15 000 and 15 999 accounts 199 In December 2013 the company made statement to further emphasize the fact that they take their customers privacy and data protection very seriously even saying that government snooping potentially now constitutes an advanced persistent threat alongside sophisticated malware and cyber attacks 200 The statement also marked the beginning of three part program to enhance Microsoft s encryption and transparency efforts On July 1 2014 as part of this program they opened the first of many Microsoft Transparency Center which provides participating governments with the ability to review source code for our key products assure themselves of their software integrity and confirm there are no back doors 201 Microsoft has also argued that the United States Congress should enact strong privacy regulations to protect consumer data 202 In April 2016 the company sued the U S government argued that secrecy orders were preventing the company from disclosing warrants to customers in violation of the company s and customers rights Microsoft argued that it was unconstitutional for the government to indefinitely ban Microsoft from informing its users that the government was requesting their emails and other documents and that the Fourth Amendment made it so people or businesses had the right to know if the government searches or seizes their property On October 23 2017 Microsoft said it would drop the lawsuit as a result of a policy change by the United States Department of Justice DoJ The DoJ had changed data request rules on alerting the Internet users about agencies accessing their information Corporate identityCorporate culture Technical references for developers and articles for various Microsoft magazines such as Microsoft Systems Journal MSJ are available through the Microsoft Developer Network MSDN MSDN also offers subscriptions for companies and individuals and the more expensive subscriptions usually offer access to pre release beta versions of Microsoft software 203 204 In April 2004 Microsoft launched a community site for developers and users titled Channel 9 that provides a wiki and an Internet forum 205 Another community site that provides daily videocasts and other services On10 net launched on March 3 2006 206 Free technical support is traditionally provided through online Usenet newsgroups and CompuServe in the past monitored by Microsoft employees there can be several newsgroups for a single product Helpful people can be elected by peers or Microsoft employees for Microsoft Most Valuable Professional MVP status which entitles them to a sort of special social status and possibilities for awards and other benefits 207 Noted for its internal lexicon the expression eating your own dog food is used to describe the policy of using pre release and beta versions of products inside Microsoft in an effort to test them in real world situations 208 This is usually shortened to just dog food and is used as a noun verb and adjective Another bit of jargon FYIFV or FYIV Fuck You I m Fully Vested is used by an employee to indicate they are financially independent and can avoid work anytime they wish 209 Microsoft is an outspoken opponent of the cap on H 1B visas which allows companies in the U S to employ certain foreign workers Bill Gates claims the cap on H1B visas makes it difficult to hire employees for the company stating I d certainly get rid of the H1B cap in 2005 210 Critics of H1B visas argue that relaxing the limits would result in increased unemployment for U S citizens due to H1B workers working for lower salaries 211 The Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index a report of how progressive the organization deems company policies towards LGBT employees rated Microsoft as 87 from 2002 to 2004 and as 100 from 2005 to 2010 after they allowed gender expression 212 In August 2018 Microsoft implemented a policy for all companies providing subcontractors to require 12 weeks of paid parental leave to each employee This expands on the former requirement from 2015 requiring 15 days of paid vacation and sick leave each year 213 In 2015 Microsoft established its own parental leave policy to allow 12 weeks off for parental leave with an additional 8 weeks for the parent who gave birth 214 Environment In 2011 Greenpeace released a report rating the top ten big brands in cloud computing on their sources of electricity for their data centers At the time data centers consumed up to 2 of all global electricity and this amount was projected to increase Phil Radford of Greenpeace said we are concerned that this new explosion in electricity use could lock us into old polluting energy sources instead of the clean energy available today 215 and called on Amazon Microsoft and other leaders of the information technology industry must embrace clean energy to power their cloud based data centers 216 In 2013 Microsoft agreed to buy power generated by a Texas wind project to power one of its data centers 217 Microsoft is ranked on the 17th place in Greenpeace s Guide to Greener Electronics 16th Edition that ranks 18 electronics manufacturers according to their policies on toxic chemicals recycling and climate change 218 Microsoft s timeline for phasing out brominated flame retardant BFRs and phthalates in all products is 2012 but its commitment to phasing out PVC is not clear As of January 2011 it has no products that are completely free from PVC and BFRs 219 Microsoft s main U S campus received a silver certification from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design LEED program in 2008 and it installed over 2 000 solar panels on top of its buildings at its Silicon Valley campus generating approximately 15 percent of the total energy needed by the facilities in April 2005 220 Microsoft makes use of alternative forms of transit It created one of the world s largest private bus systems the Connector to transport people from outside the company for on campus transportation the Shuttle Connect uses a large fleet of hybrid cars to save fuel The company also subsidizes regional public transport provided by Sound Transit and King County Metro as an incentive 220 221 In February 2010 however Microsoft took a stance against adding additional public transport and high occupancy vehicle HOV lanes to the State Route 520 and its floating bridge connecting Redmond to Seattle the company did not want to delay the construction any further 222 Microsoft was ranked number 1 in the list of the World s Best Multinational Workplaces by the Great Place to Work Institute in 2011 223 In January 2020 the company promised the carbon dioxide removal of all carbon that it has emitted since its foundation in 1975 224 On October 9 2020 Microsoft permanently allowed remote work 225 In January 2021 the company announced on Twitter to join the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact which engages the cloud infrastructure and data centers industries to reach carbon neutrality in Europe by 2030 Headquarters The west campus of the Microsoft Redmond campus The corporate headquarters informally known as the Microsoft Redmond campus is located at One Microsoft Way in Redmond Washington Microsoft initially moved onto the grounds of the campus on February 26 1986 weeks before the company went public on March 13 The headquarters has since experienced multiple expansions since its establishment It is estimated to encompass over 8 million ft2 750 000 m2 of office space and 30 000 40 000 employees 226 Additional offices are located in Bellevue and Issaquah Washington 90 000 employees worldwide The company is planning to upgrade its Mountain View California campus on a grand scale The company has occupied this campus since 1981 In 2016 the company bought the 32 acre 13 ha campus with plans to renovate and expand it by 25 227 Microsoft operates an East Coast headquarters in Charlotte North Carolina 228 Flagship stores Microsoft s Toronto flagship store On October 26 2015 the company opened its retail location on Fifth Avenue in New York City The location features a five story glass storefront and is 22 270 square feet 229 As per company executives Microsoft had been on the lookout for a flagship location since 2009 230 The company s retail locations are part of a greater strategy to help build a connection with its consumers The opening of the store coincided with the launch of the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 231 On November 12 2015 Microsoft opened a second flagship store located in Sydney s Pitt Street Mall 232 Logo Microsoft adopted the so called Pac Man Logo designed by Scott Baker in 1987 Baker stated The new logo in Helvetica italic typeface has a slash between the o and s to emphasize the soft part of the name and convey motion and speed 233 Dave Norris ran an internal joke campaign to save the old logo which was green in all uppercase and featured a fanciful letter O nicknamed the blibbet but it was discarded 234 Microsoft s logo with the tagline Your potential Our passion below the main corporate name is based on a slogan Microsoft used in 2008 In 2002 the company started using the logo in the United States and eventually started a television campaign with the slogan changed from the previous tagline of Where do you want to go today 235 236 237 During the private MGX Microsoft Global Exchange conference in 2010 Microsoft unveiled the company s next tagline Be What s Next 238 They also had a slogan tagline Making it all make sense 239 On August 23 2012 Microsoft unveiled a new corporate logo at the opening of its 23rd Microsoft store in Boston indicating the company s shift of focus from the classic style to the tile centric modern interface which it uses will use on the Windows Phone platform Xbox 360 Windows 8 and the upcoming Office Suites 240 The new logo also includes four squares with the colors of the then current Windows logo which have been used to represent Microsoft s four major products Windows blue Office red Xbox green and Bing yellow 241 The logo also resembles the opening of one of the commercials for Windows 95 242 243 Microsoft logo history 1975 1980 First Microsoft logo in 1975 1980 1982 Second Microsoft logo in 1980 1982 1987 Third Microsoft logo in 1982 1987 2012 Microsoft Pac Man logo designed by Scott Baker and used from 1987 to 2012 235 236 2012 present Fifth Microsoft logo introduced on August 23 2012 244 Sponsorship Toyota Yaris WRC The company was the official jersey sponsor of Finland s national basketball team at EuroBasket 2015 245 The company was a major sponsor of the Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT 2017 2020 The company was a sponsor of the Renault F1 Team 2016 2020 Philanthropy During the COVID 19 pandemic Microsoft s president Brad Smith announced that an initial batch of supplies including 15 000 protection goggles infrared thermometers medical caps and protective suits was donated to Seattle with further aid to come soon 246 During 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Microsoft started monitoring cyberattacks on behalf of the Russian government and Russia backed hackers In June 2022 Microsoft published the report on Russian cyber attacks and concluded that state backed Russian hackers have engaged in strategic espionage against governments think tanks businesses and aid groups in 42 countries supporting Kyiv 247 Controversies Main articles Microsoft litigation and Criticism of Microsoft Criticism of Microsoft has followed various aspects of its products and business practices Frequently criticized are the ease of use robustness and security of the company s software They ve also been criticized for the use of permatemp employees employees employed for years as temporary and therefore without medical benefits the use of forced retention tactics which means that employees would be sued if they tried to leave 248 Historically Microsoft has also been accused of overworking employees in many cases leading to burnout within just a few years of joining the company The company is often referred to as a Velvet Sweatshop a term which originated in a 1989 Seattle Times article 249 and later became used to describe the company by some of Microsoft s own employees 250 This characterization is derived from the perception that Microsoft provides nearly everything for its employees in a convenient place but in turn overworks them to a point where it would be bad for their possibly long term health As reported by several news outlets 251 252 an Irish subsidiary of Microsoft based in the Republic of Ireland declared 220 bn in profits but paid no corporation tax for the year 2020 This is due to the company being tax resident in Bermuda as mentioned in the accounts for Microsoft Round Island One a subsidiary that collects license fees from the use of Microsoft software worldwide Dame Margaret Hodge a Labour MP in the UK said It is unsurprising yet still shocking that massively wealthy global corporations openly unashamedly and blatantly refuse to pay tax on the profits they make in the countries where they undertake business 252 In 2020 ProPublica reported that the company had diverted more than 39 billion in U S profits to Puerto Rico using a mechanism structured to make it seem as if the company was unprofitable on paper As a result the company paid a tax rate on those profits of nearly 0 When the Internal Revenue Service audited these transactions ProPublica reported that Microsoft aggressively fought back including successfully lobbying Congress to change the law to make it harder for the agency to conduct audits of large corporations 253 254 Embrace extend and extinguish EEE 255 also known as embrace extend and exterminate 256 is a phrase that the U S Department of Justice found 257 that was used internally by Microsoft 258 to describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards extending those standards with proprietary capabilities and then using those differences to strongly disadvantage competitors Microsoft is frequently accused of using anticompetitive tactics and abusing its monopolistic power People who use their products and services often end up becoming dependent on them a process is known as vendor lock in Microsoft was the first company to participate in the PRISM surveillance program according to leaked NSA documents obtained by The Guardian 259 and The Washington Post 260 in June 2013 and acknowledged by government officials following the leak 261 The program authorizes the government to secretly access data of non US citizens hosted by American companies without a warrant Microsoft has denied participation in such a program 262 Jesse Jackson believes Microsoft should hire more minorities and women In 2015 he praised Microsoft for appointing two women to its board of directors 263 Licensing arrangements for service providersThe Microsoft Services Provider License Agreement or SPLA is a mechanism by which service providers and independent software vendors ISVs who license Microsoft products on a monthly basis are able to provide software services and hosting services to end users The SPLA can be customized to suit the solution being offered and the customers using it 264 See alsoList of Microsoft software List of Microsoft hardware List of investments by Microsoft Corporation List of mergers and acquisitions by Microsoft Microsoft engineering groups Microsoft Enterprise AgreementReferences Microsoft Corporation Form 10 K U S Securities and Exchange Commission July 28 2022 pp 8 57 59 Fortune 500 list of companies 2020 Fortune Retrieved August 19 2020 U S Securities and Exchange Commission Linkedin US SEC December 8 2016 Archived from the original on October 18 2017 Retrieved April 29 2018 As a result of the Merger a change in control of Linkedin occurred and Linkedin became a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft The transaction resulted in the payment of approximately 26 4 billion in cash merger consideration Microsoft confirms takeover of Skype BBC May 10 2011 Archived from the original on June 20 2018 Retrieved April 29 2018 Keizer Gregg July 14 2014 Microsoft gets real admits its device share is just 14 Computerworld International Data Group Archived from the original on August 21 2016 Microsoft s chief operating officer Turner s 14 came from a new forecast released last week by Gartner which estimated Windows share of the shipped device market last year was 14 and would decrease slightly to 13 7 in 2014 Android will dominate Gartner said with a 48 share this year Blodget Henry August 23 2013 And Microsoft Is Giving Up On The Software Business Business Insider Australia Archived from the original on August 2 2017 Retrieved August 2 2017 Notify The Next Of Kin InformationWeek June 30 2010 Archived from the original on April 24 2014 Retrieved April 24 2014 Microsoft sees shares hit record high BBC October 21 2016 Archived from the original on October 16 2017 Retrieved October 7 2017 Microsoft s cloud focus could mean yet more layoffs Engadget Archived from the original on August 2 2017 Retrieved October 7 2017 How did Microsoft just overtake Apple as the world s most valuable company NBC News Archived from the original on November 29 2018 Retrieved November 28 2018 a b c d e f g h i Allan Roy A 2001 A History of the Personal Computer Allan Publishing ISBN 978 0 9689108 0 1 Retrieved July 17 2010 Bill Gates Biography com Archived from the original on November 6 2016 Retrieved November 8 2016 Microsoft Company History Archived from the original on August 6 2013 Retrieved March 20 2013 Finucane Martin December 30 2008 Harvard Square newsstand sold the magazine that started a revolution Boston com The New York Times Company Archived from the original on January 1 2009 a b c Bill Gates A Timeline BBC News Online BBC July 15 2006 Archived from the original on June 22 2006 Retrieved July 17 2010 Schlender Brent October 2 1995 Bill Gates amp Paul Allen Talk Check Out The Ultimate Buddy Act in Business History Fortune Time Inc Archived from the original on May 3 2011 Retrieved April 25 2011 Allen Paul 2011 Paul Allen Idea Man Penguin Group p 91 ISBN 978 0 14 196938 1 Staples Betsy August 1984 Kay Nishi bridges the cultural gap Creative Computing 10 8 192 Archived from the original on May 11 2011 Retrieved July 15 2010 Dyar Dafydd Neal November 4 2002 Under The Hood Part 8 Computer Source Archived from the original on September 1 2006 Retrieved July 14 2010 Engines That Move Markets Technology Investing from Railroads to the Internet and Beyond John Wiley amp Sons 2002 ISBN 978 0 471 20595 1 Archived from the original on March 23 2019 Retrieved February 8 2018 Microsoft to Microsoft disk operating system MS DOS Smart Computing Sandhills Publishing Company 6 3 March 2002 Archived from the original on April 5 2004 Retrieved August 18 2008 Blaxill Mark Eckardt Ralph 2009 The Invisible Edge Taking Your Strategy to the Next Level Using Intellectual Property Portfolio p 210 ISBN 978 1 59184 237 8 Archived from the original on March 23 2019 Retrieved February 8 2018 Paul Allen goes public with hard feelings toward Gates The Seattle Times Archived from the original on November 4 2016 Retrieved January 4 2018 Wingfield Nick Guth Robert A March 30 2011 Microsoft Co Founder Hits Out at Gates The Wall Street Journal O Connor Clare 10 Things You Didn t Know About Microsoft Billionaire Paul Allen Seattle Seahawks Owner Forbes Archived from the original on February 2 2018 Retrieved February 1 2018 Microsoft OS 2 Announcement April 10 2010 Archived from the original on April 10 2010 Retrieved August 9 2017 a b Microsoft Chronology CBS News CBS Interactive Archived from the original on November 5 2008 Retrieved August 5 2010 Bick Julie May 29 2005 The Microsoft Millionaires Come of Age The New York Times Archived from the original on April 12 2006 Retrieved July 3 2006 U S v Microsoft Timeline Wired Conde Nast November 4 2002 Archived from the original on April 19 2010 Retrieved July 17 2010 Thurrott Paul January 24 2003 Windows Server 2003 The Road To Gold winsupersite com Penton Media Archived from the original on June 4 2010 Retrieved July 15 2010 Athow Desire May 22 2010 Microsoft Windows 3 0 Is 20 Years Old Today ITProPortal Archived from the original on March 25 2012 Retrieved April 4 2012 Miller Michael August 1 1998 OS Market Share 1993 2001 Windows 98 Put to the Test PC Magazine Ziff Davis Archived from the original on May 11 2011 Retrieved July 3 2010 McCracken Harry September 13 2000 A Peek at Office Upgrade PC World IDG Archived from the original on May 6 2009 Retrieved July 4 2006 Competitive Impact Statement U S v Microsoft Corporation Justice gov Archived from the original on May 10 2011 Retrieved May 11 2011 Borland John April 15 2003 Victor Software empire pays high price CNET CBS Interactive Archived from the original on November 16 2011 Retrieved July 16 2010 Strebe Matthew February 20 2006 Network Security Foundations Technology Fundamentals for IT Success ISBN 9780782151367 Archived from the original on March 23 2019 Retrieved March 16 2019 Cope Jim March 1996 New And Improved Smart Computing Sandhills Publishing Company 4 3 Archived from the original on July 6 2004 Retrieved July 16 2010 Pietrek Matt March 1996 Windows 95 Programming Secrets IDG ISBN 978 1 56884 318 6 Retrieved July 17 2010 Thurrott Paul May 19 2005 MSN The Inside Story Supersite for Windows Penton Media Archived from the original on May 23 2010 Retrieved July 17 2010 Edwards Benj August 24 2020 Windows 95 Turns 25 When Windows Went Mainstream Archived January 5 2021 at the Wayback Machine How To Geek Retrieved November 29 2020 Chew Jonathan August 24 2015 Microsoft Launched This Product 20 Years Ago and Changed the World Archived October 21 2020 at the Wayback Machine Fortune Retrieved November 29 2020 Wild Chris August 24 2015 Aug 24 1995 Launching Windows 95 Archived November 27 2020 at the Wayback Machine Mashable Retrieved November 29 2020 Marketplace News Archives Marketplace American Public Media July 15 1996 Archived from the original on August 23 2004 Tilly Chris The History of Microsoft Windows CE HPC Factor Archived from the original on September 21 2008 Retrieved August 18 2008 Markoff John June 20 2002 Fears of Misuse of Encryption System Are Voiced The New York Times Archived from the original on May 11 2011 Retrieved July 7 2010 Stajano Frank 2003 Security for whom The shifting security assumptions of pervasive computing Software Security Theories and Systems PDF Software Security Theories and Systems Lecture Notes in Computer Science Vol 2609 Springer Verlag Berlin Heidelberg pp 16 27 CiteSeerX 10 1 1 127 7219 doi 10 1007 3 540 36532 X 2 ISBN 978 3 540 00708 1 Archived PDF from the original on January 28 2011 Retrieved July 6 2010 United States v Microsoft U S Department of Justice Archived from the original on August 4 2005 Retrieved August 5 2005 Jackson Thomas Penfield November 5 1999 U S vs Microsoft findings of fact U S Department of Justice Archived from the original on August 15 2010 Retrieved August 18 2008 Thurrott Paul October 26 2001 WinInfo Short Takes Windows XP Launch Special Edition Windows IT Pro Penton Media Archived from the original on May 26 2012 Retrieved July 16 2010 NPD Reports Annual 2001 U S Interactive Entertainment Sales Shatter Industry Record Press release Port Washington New York The NPD Group February 7 2002 Archived from the original on August 14 2004 Retrieved January 28 2015 Microsoft hit by record EU fine CNN March 25 2004 Archived from the original on April 13 2006 Retrieved August 14 2010 Commission Decision of 24 03 2004 relating to a proceeding under Article 82 of the EC Treaty Case COMP C 3 37 792 Microsoft PDF Commission of the European Communities April 21 2004 Archived from the original on October 11 2007 Retrieved August 5 2005 Morris Game Over is a weekly column by Chris Microsoft sets price for Xbox 360 Aug 17 2005 money cnn com Archived from the original on April 25 2018 Retrieved January 4 2018 A Microsoft Milestone Hardware Celebrates 25 Years of Proven Success Stories August 22 2007 Wee Gerald November 10 2005 Steve Ballmer on management style ITWorld IDG CIO Asia Archived from the original on May 14 2011 Retrieved January 29 2011 Vamosi Robert January 23 2007 Windows Vista Ultimate review CNET CBS Interactive Archived from the original on April 6 2012 Retrieved April 4 2012 Ricadela Aaron February 14 2006 Gates Says Security Is Job One For Vista InformationWeek UBM TechWeb Archived from the original on March 18 2012 Retrieved April 4 2012 Vista gives Microsoft view of record profit Edinburgh Evening News Johnston Press April 27 2007 Archived from the original on August 4 2020 Retrieved February 1 2009 McCormick John 2011 European Union Politics New York Palgrave Macmillan p 340 ISBN 978 0 230 57707 7 AFP EU hits Microsoft with record 899 million euro antitrust fine Google News Agence France Presse February 27 2008 Archived from the original on April 30 2008 Retrieved June 1 2008 Microsoft Multi core and the Data Center Archived from the original on April 6 2013 Retrieved March 18 2013 Conte Natali Del June 15 2006 Bill Gates Announces Resignation PC Magazine Ziff Davis Archived from the original on April 20 2010 Retrieved July 17 2010 Beaumont Claudine June 27 2008 Bill Gates steps down as Microsoft head to concentrate on philanthropy The Telegraph Archived from the original on March 13 2016 Retrieved January 9 2016 Fried Ina October 27 2008 Microsoft launches Windows Azure CNET CBS Interactive Archived from the original on May 10 2011 Retrieved July 6 2010 Fried Ina February 12 2009 Microsoft follows Apple into the retail business CNET CBS Interactive Archived from the original on May 10 2011 Retrieved July 17 2010 Gaynor Tim October 22 2009 Long lines as Microsoft opens retail store Reuters Thomson Reuters Archived from the original on February 4 2011 Retrieved July 3 2010 Mintz Jessica October 22 2009 Windows 7 operating system makes its debut NBCNews com NBCUniversal Associated Press Retrieved April 4 2012 Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 7 partners Oct 11 2010 money cnn com Lecrenski Nick Watson Karli Fonseca Ensor Robert 2010 Beginning Windows Phone 7 Application Development Building Windows Phone Applications Using Silverlight and XNA Hoboken NJ John Wiley amp Sons p 4 ISBN 978 0 470 91233 1 Helal Abdelsalam A Helal Sumi Bose Raja Li Wendong 2012 Mobile Platforms and Development Environments Morgan amp Claypool Publishers p 33 ISBN 978 1 60845 866 0 Baker Rosie February 11 2011 Nokia to partner with Microsoft under new structure Warren Tom September 19 2012 HTC rekindles its old Microsoft romance and bets on Windows Phone 8 The Verge Erickson David March 21 2011 Open Networking Foundation News Release Openflow org Archived from the original on March 26 2011 Retrieved May 29 2011 Google and other titans form Open Networking Foundation Noyes March 23 2011 Computerworld IDG March 23 2011 Archived from the original on April 6 2011 Retrieved May 29 2011 Windows Phone 7 Series UI Design amp Interaction Guide March 18 2010 Archived from the original on May 27 2013 Retrieved October 9 2010 Microsoft releases final test version of Windows 8 Business Line Kasturi amp Sons June 1 2012 Archived from the original on August 28 2012 Retrieved August 4 2012 Rosoff Matt January 5 2011 OK So Windows 8 Is Coming To ARM Tablets Someday MSFT San Francisco Chronicle Archived from the original on June 29 2011 Retrieved January 5 2011 Sullivan Mark June 18 2012 Microsoft Announces New Surface Tablet PC PCWorld Archived from the original on February 8 2013 Retrieved June 19 2012 a b Eichenwald Kurt Microsoft s Lost Decade How Microsoft Lost Its Mojo Archived August 16 2013 at the Wayback Machine Vanity Fair August 2012 Acohido Byron June 25 2012 Microsoft buys Internet startup Yammer for 1 2 billion USA Today Gannett Company Archived from the original on June 26 2012 Retrieved June 25 2012 Thurrott Paul July 31 2012 Outlook com Mail Microsoft Reimagines Webmail Supersite for Windows Penton Media Archived from the original on August 3 2012 Retrieved August 1 2012 Windows Server 2012 Save the Date Announcement Microsoft August 8 2012 Archived from the original on November 7 2013 Venkatesan Adithya Mukherjee Supantha Leske Nicola July 16 2012 Comcast buys Microsoft stake in MSNBC com Reuters Archived from the original on February 13 2015 Retrieved February 13 2015 Rigby Bill October 1 2012 Microsoft launching news operation new MSN Reuters Archived from the original on October 2 2012 Retrieved October 1 2012 Windows 8 s delivery date October 26 ZDNet July 18 2012 Archived from the original on September 19 2012 Retrieved September 17 2012 Mary Jo Foley Windows Phone 8 launch date revealed LiveSide net August 30 2012 Archived from the original on November 3 2012 Retrieved November 27 2012 Microsoft prepping for complete brand and product line relaunch New York store coming the 26th wpcentral com October 2 2012 Archived from the original on November 2 2012 Retrieved November 3 2012 Microsoft launches Patent Tracker to help you search its library of intellectual property The Next Web March 28 2013 Archived from the original on March 31 2013 Retrieved March 29 2013 Parascandola Rocco Moore Tina NYPD unveils new 40 million supercomputer system that uses data from a network of cameras license plate readers and crime reports New York Daily News Retrieved June 15 2019 Pierce David May 21 2013 The all seeing Kinect tracking my face arms body and heart on the Xbox One The Verge Vox Media Archived from the original on June 7 2013 Retrieved May 28 2013 Funky Friday More than 32 billion in Microsoft stock value wiped out Microsoft CNET News News cnet com Archived from the original on August 22 2013 Retrieved July 21 2013 Microsoft s sweeping reorganization shifts focus to services devices July 11 2013 Archived from the original on October 26 2013 Retrieved October 28 2013 Microsoft buying Nokia s phone business in a 7 2 billion bid for its mobile future September 3 2013 Archived from the original on September 29 2017 Retrieved September 5 2017 Microsoft names insider Amy Hood as CFO Reuters Reuters com May 8 2013 Archived from the original on April 9 2014 Retrieved April 18 2014 Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months August 23 2013 Archived from the original on August 23 2013 David Javier E February 5 2014 Nadella named new Microsoft CEO as Gates era ends NBCNews com NBCUniversal Archived from the original on February 5 2014 Edwards Breanna John W Thompson to Become 1st Black Chairman of Microsoft The Root Archived from the original on February 2 2018 Retrieved February 1 2018 Microsoft to close its acquisition of Nokia s devices and services business on April 25 The Economic Times April 22 2014 Archived from the original on August 5 2016 Retrieved May 25 2016 Borges Andre April 21 2014 Nokia phone division to be renamed Microsoft Mobile reveals leaked letter dna Archived from the original on October 15 2016 Retrieved May 25 2016 Hutchinson Lee September 15 2014 It s official Microsoft acquires Mojang and Minecraft for 2 5 billion Ars Technica Archived from the original on September 19 2014 Retrieved September 19 2014 Dellinger AJ June 8 2017 Microsoft Buys Cybersecurity Company Hexadite To Respond To Cyberattacks International Business Times Archived from the original on June 8 2017 Retrieved June 9 2017 Microsoft agrees to buy U S Israeli cyber firm Hexadite Reuters June 8 2017 Archived from the original on June 9 2017 Retrieved June 9 2017 Frumusanu Ian Cutress Andrei Microsoft at MWC 2015 Lumia 640 and 640 XL Announced 4K 120Hz Surface Hub Demoed Archived from the original on September 27 2015 Retrieved September 27 2015 Howse Brett July 29 2015 Windows 10 Launches Worldwide AnandTech Archived from the original on June 24 2016 Retrieved May 25 2016 Gartner Says Emerging Markets Drove Worldwide Smartphone Sales to 19 Percent Growth in First Quarter of 2015 Press release Gartner May 27 2015 Archived from the original on June 14 2015 Retrieved July 28 2015 Howley Daniel May 25 2016 Microsoft needs to change its mobile strategy or get out Yahoo Tech Archived from the original on May 27 2016 Retrieved May 26 2016 a b Greene Jay May 25 2016 Microsoft to Streamline Smartphone Hardware Business The Wall Street Journal Archived from the original on May 25 2016 Retrieved May 25 2016 Stuart Keith March 2016 Microsoft to unify PC and Xbox One platforms ending fixed console hardware The Guardian Archived from the original on December 17 2016 Retrieved December 12 2016 Mehdi Yusuf January 24 2017 Announcing Intune for Education amp new Windows 10 PCs for school starting at 189 The Official Microsoft Blog Archived from the original on January 25 2017 Retrieved January 25 2017 Frederic Lardinois January 24 2017 Microsoft launches Intune for Education to counter Google s Chromebooks in schools TechCrunch Archived from the original on January 25 2017 Retrieved January 25 2017 Microsoft announces new data protection tool to help enterprises secure their data Tech Crunch June 22 2016 Archived from the original on June 22 2016 Retrieved June 23 2016 Microsoft has joined the Linux Foundation Archived from the original on November 25 2016 Retrieved November 24 2016 Microsoft joined linux foundation with yearly platinum membership Lock SSL Archived from the original on February 2 2017 Retrieved November 24 2016 Warren Tom November 11 2016 Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation 15 years after Ballmer called it cancer The Verge Vox Media Archived from the original on August 16 2017 Retrieved August 18 2017 Andy Weir January 24 2017 Microsoft introduces Intune for Education promising simple setup and management of devices Neowin Archived from the original on January 27 2017 Retrieved January 25 2017 a b c d e f g h Microsoft s 2018 part 1 Open source wobbly Windows and everyone s going to the cloud The Register Archived from the original on January 3 2019 Retrieved January 3 2019 Microsoft to acquire GitHub for 7 5 billion Microsoft June 4 2018 Archived from the original on June 4 2018 Microsoft completes GitHub acquisition www msn com Archived from the original on January 12 2019 Retrieved April 10 2019 Hackett Robert August 21 2018 Microsoft Offers Free Cybersecurity Tools to Political Candidates But You ve Got to Be a Microsoft Customer Archived from the original on August 22 2018 Retrieved August 24 2018 Lerman Rachel August 20 2018 Microsoft releases new security tools for political campaigns to combat hacking attempts The Seattle Times Archived from the original on August 24 2018 Retrieved August 24 2018 Google goes bilingual Facebook fleshes out translation and TensorFlow is dope And Microsoft is assisting fish farmers in Japan The Register Archived from the original on September 2 2018 Retrieved September 2 2018 Microsoft has signed up to the Open Invention Network We repeat Microsoft has signed up to the OIN The Register Archived from the original on October 11 2018 Retrieved October 14 2018 See this Google Microsoft happy to take a half billion in sweet sweet US military money to increase lethality The Register Archived from the original on November 30 2018 Retrieved November 30 2018 a b Microsoft s 2018 part 2 Azure data centers heat up and Windows 10 It burns It burns The Register Archived from the original on January 4 2019 Retrieved January 3 2019 Microsoft announces Project Mu an open source release of the UEFI core December 20 2018 Archived from the original on December 21 2018 Retrieved December 22 2018 Microsoft expands political security service to 12 European countries Archived February 20 2019 at the Wayback Machine Reuters February 20 2019 Wong Julia Carrie February 22 2019 We won t be war profiteers Microsoft workers protest 480m army contract The Guardian Archived from the original on February 23 2019 Retrieved February 23 2019 Microsoft Stock Reacts To Head Scratcher Acquisition Investor s Business Daily March 27 2020 Retrieved March 30 2020 Microsoft announces agreement to acquire Affirmed Networks to deliver new opportunities for a global 5G ecosystem The Official Microsoft Blog March 26 2020 Retrieved March 30 2020 Microsoft is closing its retail stores around the world indefinitely because of the coronavirus crisis Business Insider Retrieved March 17 2020 Bringing More Players Into Our Gaming Vision Microsoft June 22 2020 Retrieved August 17 2020 Jacobs Jennifer Mohsin Saleha Leonard Jenny July 31 2020 Trump to Order China s ByteDance to Sell TikTok in U S Bloomberg com Retrieved August 3 2020 Davidson Helen August 3 2020 TikTok sale Trump approves Microsoft s plan but says US should get a cut of any deal The Guardian Retrieved August 3 2020 Microsoft cuts xCloud iOS testing early as its future on Apple devices remains unclear The Verge August 5 2020 Retrieved August 5 2020 Ruppert Liana September 21 2020 Microsoft Acquires Bethesda The Studio Behind Fallout The Elder Scrolls Doom And More Game Informer Retrieved September 22 2020 Kim Matt T M March 10 2021 Microsoft s ZeniMax Acquisition Officially Complete Bethesda Now a Part of Xbox IGN Retrieved March 10 2021 Form 10 K SEC June 30 2021 p 39 Retrieved August 7 2021 Hao Karen September 23 2020 OpenAI is giving Microsoft exclusive access to its GPT 3 language model MIT Technology Review Retrieved September 26 2020 On September 22 Microsoft announced that it would begin exclusively licensing GPT 3 the world s largest language model built by San Francisco based OpenAI MICROSOFT GETS EXCLUSIVE ACCESS TO AI DEEMED TOO DANGEROUS TO RELEASE Independent September 23 2020 Archived from the original on May 14 2022 Retrieved September 24 2020 The all new Xbox Series X Xbox Xbox com Retrieved December 2 2020 Reuters Staff April 12 2021 Microsoft to buy AI firm Nuance Communications for about 16 billion in healthcare push Reuters Retrieved April 12 2021 Microsoft Completes Acquisition of Nuance FinSMEs March 5 2022 Retrieved March 6 2022 Tilley Aaron April 27 2021 Microsoft Sales Show Strong Growth in Gaming Cloud The Wall Street Journal ISSN 0099 9660 Retrieved April 29 2021 Tilley Aaron March 27 2020 One Business Winner Amid Coronavirus Lockdowns the Cloud The Wall Street Journal ISSN 0099 9660 Retrieved April 29 2021 FY21 Q2 Press Releases Investor Relations Microsoft www microsoft com Retrieved April 29 2021 Microsoft has officially announced Windows 11 Windows Central June 24 2021 Retrieved June 24 2021 Windows 11 available on October 5 Windows Experience Blog August 31 2021 Retrieved October 20 2021 Lundun Ingrid September 10 2021 Microsoft acquires TakeLessons an online and in person tutoring platform to ramp up its edtech play TechCrunch Retrieved December 18 2022 Anthony Spadafora October 22 2021 Microsoft Teams calls are getting a major security upgrade Tech Radar Retrieved October 22 2021 Ron Miller Alex Wilhelm October 7 2021 Microsoft acquires Ally io OKR startup that raised 76 million Tech Crunch Retrieved November 12 2021 a b Warren Tom January 18 2022 Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard for 68 7 billion The Verge Retrieved January 18 2022 Anne Melissa January 19 2022 Microsoft just bought Warcraft creator Activision Blizzard for 69 billion MEGPlay Retrieved January 19 2022 Patnaik Subrat Mukherjee Supantha January 19 2022 Microsoft to gobble up Activision in 69 billion metaverse bet Reuters Retrieved January 20 2022 Tedder Michael Microsoft Purchases Activision Blizzard Plans To Dominates The Metaverse TheStreet Retrieved January 20 2022 Tilley Cara Lombardo Kirsten Grind and Aaron January 18 2022 WSJ News Exclusive Microsoft to Buy Activision Blizzard in All Cash Deal Valued at 75 Billion The Wall Street Journal ISSN 0099 9660 Retrieved January 20 2022 Kendall Ryan Tracy and Brent February 1 2022 Microsoft Activision Deal to Be Reviewed by Federal Trade Commission The Wall Street Journal ISSN 0099 9660 Retrieved February 1 2022 Clinch Matt Kharpal Arjun December 12 2022 Microsoft buys near 4 stake in London Stock Exchange Group as part of 10 year cloud deal CNBC Microsoft Leadership Microsoft March 20 2017 Retrieved July 31 2020 Microsoft Corporation Corporate Governance Microsoft Retrieved July 31 2020 Tilley Aaron March 13 2020 Bill Gates to Leave Boards of Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway Wall Street Journal via www wsj com Tilley Aaron January 13 2022 Microsoft Board to Review Company s Sexual Harassment and Gender Discrimination Policies The Wall Street Journal Retrieved January 14 2022 Five year history graph of NASDAQ MSFT stock ZenoBank AlphaTrade September 29 2009 Archived from the original on October 30 2008 Retrieved September 29 2009 Monkman Carol Smith March 14 1986 Microsoft stock is red hot on first trading day Seattle Post Intelligencer Hearst Seattle Media LLC p B9 Archived from the original on February 21 2010 Retrieved July 18 2010 MSFT stock performance and split info Morningstar Inc Archived from the original on May 10 2011 Retrieved July 17 2010 a b Microsoft stock price spreadsheet from Microsoft investor relations Microsoft Archived from the original xls on October 10 2009 Retrieved August 18 2008 a b Dividend Frequently Asked Questions Microsoft Archived from the original on July 20 2008 Retrieved August 18 2008 Yahoo MSFT stock chart Yahoo Finance Archived from the original on January 23 2008 Retrieved December 13 2008 Microsoft sells 2 25 billion of debt at low rates Reuters February 4 2011 Archived from the original on November 7 2015 Retrieved July 1 2017 Arthur Charles April 28 2011 Microsoft falls behind Apple for the first time in 20 years The Guardian London Archived from the original on October 19 2013 Retrieved May 11 2011 When Will Microsoft s Internet Bloodbath End Techcrunch com April 29 2011 Archived from the original on May 10 2011 Retrieved May 11 2011 White Martha Microsoft reports first quarterly loss ever Archived from the original on July 20 2012 Retrieved July 20 2012 Microsoft Overview Marketwatch Archived from the original on February 2 2014 Retrieved February 2 2014 Global Top 100 Companies PWC Archived from the original on February 12 2014 Retrieved February 2 2014 Microsoft Surpasses Exxon as 2nd Most Valuable Co AssociatedPress Archived from the original on May 2 2015 Retrieved November 14 2014 Untaxed U S corporate profits held overseas top 2 1 trillion study Reuters April 9 2014 Archived from the original on November 14 2015 Retrieved July 1 2017 a b c d Microsoft Investor Relations Annual Reports www microsoft com Archived from the original on November 7 2018 Retrieved November 7 2018 Microsoft wins 480M military contract to outfit soldiers with HoloLens AR tech TechCrunch Archived from the original on November 29 2018 Retrieved November 29 2018 Welcome to Microsoft Canada Microsoft Retrieved September 9 2020 Bishop Todd January 27 2004 Studies on Linux help their patron Microsoft Seattle Post Intelligencer Hearst Seattle Media LLC Archived from the original on December 5 2010 Retrieved July 16 2010 Foley Mary Jo March 24 2004 Yankee Independently Pits Windows TCO vs Linux TCO eWeek Archived from the original on January 4 2013 Retrieved July 14 2010 Jaques Robert February 13 2006 Linux fans hit back at Microsoft TCO claims vnunet com Archived from the original on July 24 2008 Retrieved August 18 2008 Mason Rowena September 10 2008 Seven hour LSE blackout caused by double glitch The Telegraph London Archived from the original on December 25 2017 Retrieved April 3 2018 London Stock Exchange trading hit by technical glitch BBC News Online BBC November 26 2009 Archived from the original on July 26 2013 Retrieved September 30 2010 Williams David M October 8 2009 London Stock Exchange gets the facts and dumps Windows for Linux ITWire Archived from the original on July 16 2011 Retrieved September 30 2010 London Stock Exchange Rejects NET For Open Source Slashdot October 6 2009 Archived from the original on August 11 2011 Retrieved September 30 2010 Wingfield Nick December 14 2012 Microsoft Battles Google by Hiring Political Brawler Mark Penn The New York Times Archived from the original on March 12 2017 Retrieved February 19 2017 Scroogled Why So Negative Microsoft TechCrunch February 10 2013 Archived from the original on March 17 2014 Retrieved April 18 2014 Hill Kashmir November 21 2013 Googlers Love Microsoft s Scroogled Gear Mug and Shirts Sell Out Forbes Archived from the original on July 29 2017 Retrieved September 5 2017 Microsoft to cut up to 18 000 jobs over next year July 17 2014 Archived from the original on July 27 2014 Retrieved July 17 2014 Microsoft Layoffs Greater Than Expected Up to 18 000 Jobs Being Cut Gamespot July 17 2014 Archived from the original on July 22 2014 Retrieved August 10 2014 By Alex Wilhelm TechCrunch Lays Off 2 100 More Employees Archived August 4 2020 at the Wayback Machine September 18 2014 September 18 2014 Perez Juan Carlos October 29 2014 Microsoft is almost done with its largest ever layoff sweep Computerworld International Data Group Archived from the original on November 4 2014 Retrieved November 10 2014 Souppouris Aaron Microsoft plans 7 800 layoffs 7 8 billion Nokia write down Archived from the original on July 11 2015 Retrieved July 8 2014 Microsoft announces streamlining of smartphone hardware business Archived from the original on December 2 2016 Retrieved November 8 2016 U S Agencies Said to Swap Data With Thousands of Firms Bloomberg June 15 2013 Archived from the original on January 12 2015 Retrieved March 10 2017 Neal Ryan W July 11 2013 Snowden Reveals Microsoft PRISM Cooperation Helped NSA Decrypt Emails Chats Skype Conversations International Business Times Archived from the original on December 3 2013 Retrieved November 15 2013 Greenwald Glenn MacAskill Ewen June 7 2013 NSA Prism program taps into user data of Apple Google and others The Guardian Guardian News and Media Limited Archived from the original on August 18 2006 Retrieved April 26 2014 Johnson Kevin Martin Scott O Donnell Jayne Winter Michael June 15 2013 Reports NSA Siphons Data from 9 Major Net Firms USA Today Archived from the original on June 7 2013 Retrieved June 6 2013 Microsoft Facebook Google and Yahoo release US surveillance requests The Guardian February 3 2014 Archived from the original on January 6 2017 Retrieved December 12 2016 Smith Brad December 4 2013 Protecting customer data from government snooping The Official Microsoft Blog Archived from the original on December 24 2014 Retrieved January 1 2015 Thomlinson Matt July 1 2014 Advancing our encryption and transparency efforts Microsoft on the Issues Archived from the original on January 1 2015 Retrieved January 1 2015 Heiner David Request for Comment Big Data and Consumer Privacy in the Internet Economy PDF National Telecommunications and Information Administration Microsoft Archived PDF from the original on August 14 2014 Retrieved August 12 2014 MSDN Subscription FAQ Microsoft Archived from the original on January 12 2009 Retrieved July 3 2006 Microsoft Systems Journal Homepage Microsoft April 15 2004 Archived from the original on July 25 2008 Retrieved August 18 2008 Hobson Neville April 11 2005 Microsoft s Channel 9 And Cultural Rules WebProNews iEntry Inc Archived from the original on April 20 2008 Retrieved July 3 2006 On10 net homepage Microsoft Archived from the original on April 28 2006 Retrieved May 4 2006 Bray Hiawatha June 13 2005 Somehow Usenet lumbers on The Boston Globe Archived from the original on March 22 2009 Retrieved July 3 2006 Microsoft tests its own dog food ZDNet CBS Interactive July 21 2003 Archived from the original on January 8 2007 Retrieved October 9 2005 Heilemann John November 2000 The Truth The Whole Truth and Nothing But The Truth Wired Conde Nast Archived from the original on July 24 2008 Retrieved September 30 2007 Mark Roy April 27 2005 Gates Rakes Congress on H1B Visa Cap internetnews com Archived from the original on June 10 2008 Retrieved August 18 2008 Bill Gates Targets Visa Rules for Tech Workers NPR March 12 2008 Archived from the original on April 24 2010 Retrieved July 6 2010 Corporate Equality Index Archive Human Rights Campaign Foundation Archived from the original on July 3 2010 Retrieved July 17 2010 Dreyfuss Emily August 31 2018 Will Others Follow Microsoft s Lead on Paid Parental Leave WIRED Archived from the original on September 1 2018 Retrieved September 1 2018 Kastrenakes Jacob August 31 2018 Microsoft says its US contractors must offer paid parental leave The Verge Archived from the original on September 1 2018 Retrieved September 1 2018 Dirty Data Report Card PDF Greenpeace Archived PDF from the original on September 10 2013 Retrieved August 22 2013 Amazon Microsoft Let s keep the cloud clean Archived December 4 2013 at the Wayback Machine Phil Radford Microsoft looks to boost eco credentials with wind powered data centre Archived January 6 2017 at the Wayback Machine Suzanne Goldenberg Guide to Greener Electronics Greenpeace International 16th Edition Greenpeace International Archived from the original on March 31 2012 Retrieved April 3 2012 Ranking tables October 2010 Greenpeace International PDF Greenpeace International Archived PDF from the original on January 28 2011 Retrieved January 24 2011 a b Mills Elinor June 6 2008 Microsoft vs Google Who s greener CNET CBS Interactive Retrieved July 3 2010 Fostering Alternative Ways to Commute at Microsoft Microsoft Archived from the original on May 1 2008 Seattle hires consultant to look at 520 bridge plan King5 Television News February 23 2010 Archived from the original on February 26 2010 Retrieved July 3 2010 Tu Janet I October 28 2011 Microsoft Pri0 Microsoft named best multinational workplace Seattle Times Newspaper Archived from the original on July 11 2012 Retrieved November 3 2011 Microsoft will be carbon negative by 2030 Official Microsoft Blog January 16 2020 Ciaccia Chris October 9 2020 Microsoft s work from home policy to become permanent FOX Business Fast Facts About Microsoft Archived August 9 2007 at the Wayback Machine Microsoft com Retrieved on August 25 2013 Nagel Allison January 25 2016 Microsoft To Buy Expand Mountain View Campus Bisnow Media Archived from the original on February 4 2019 Retrieved February 3 2019 Microsoft East Coast Headquarters Safway Services safway com Archived from the original on March 29 2017 Retrieved March 28 2017 Your First Look at Microsoft s Massive New Flagship Store Wired Conde Nast October 26 2015 Archived from the original on October 27 2015 Retrieved October 27 2015 Morris Keiko October 26 2015 Microsoft Opens Flagship Store on Fifth Avenue Wall Street Journal ISSN 0099 9660 Archived from the original on October 26 2015 Retrieved October 27 2015 Microsoft opens the doors to its New York City flagship store The Verge October 26 2015 Archived from the original on October 26 2015 Retrieved October 27 2015 Chanthadavong Aimee April 21 2015 Microsoft to open a flagship store in Sydney ZDNet Archived from the original on January 1 2016 Retrieved December 30 2015 Jha Lakshman 2008 Customer Relationship Management A Strategic Approach Global India Publications p 218 ISBN 978 81 907211 2 7 Archived from the original on March 23 2019 Retrieved May 1 2015 Osterman Larry July 14 2005 Remember the blibbet Larry Osterman s WebLog Microsoft Archived from the original on August 3 2008 Retrieved October 17 2020 a b The Rise and Rise of the Redmond Empire Wired Conde Nast December 1998 Archived from the original on November 6 2012 Retrieved August 18 2008 a b Schmelzer Randi January 9 2006 McCann Thinks Local for Global Microsoft Adweek Archived from the original on August 28 2012 Retrieved August 18 2008 Reimer Jeremy January 23 2006 Microsoft set to launch new marketing campaign Ars Technica Conde Nast Digital Archived from the original on September 18 2008 Retrieved August 18 2008 Topolsky Joshua July 22 2010 New Microsoft brand logos company tagline revealed at MGX event update no new logos the tagline is a go Engadget AOL Archived from the original on August 16 2012 Retrieved August 2 2012 InfoWorld Media Group Inc 1991 InfoWorld InfoWorld Media Group Inc p 26 Archived from the original on March 23 2019 Retrieved September 5 2017 Meisner Jeffrey August 23 2012 Microsoft Unveils a New Look The Official Microsoft Blog Archived from the original on August 25 2012 Retrieved August 23 2012 Eric Steven H August 23 2012 NEW MICROSOFT LOGO REVEALED Flapship com Archived from the original on August 25 2012 Retrieved August 23 2012 Microsoft s new logo has ties to the past August 23 2012 Archived from the original on September 21 2013 Retrieved September 13 2012 Microsoft s logo is not new it s from 1995 Archived from the original on July 28 2013 Retrieved September 13 2012 Microsoft Unveils a New Look Microsoft August 2012 Archived from the original on August 25 2012 Retrieved August 23 2012 Finland EuroBasket 2015 Archived September 28 2015 at the Wayback Machine FIBA com Retrieved September 27 2015 Tech billionaires including Tim Cook Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg promised 18 million masks to fight COVID 19 Business Insider Retrieved March 23 2020 Microsoft Russian Cyber Spying Targets 42 Ukraine Allies VOA Retrieved July 12 2022 Troubling Exits At Microsoft Archived from the original on May 2 2007 Andrews Paul April 23 1989 A Velvet Sweatshop or a High Tech Heaven The Seattle Times Archived from the original on June 29 2012 Editor s note MSJ August 1997 Microsoft Archived from the original on February 14 2007 Retrieved September 27 2005 Hancock Ciaran Irish registered subsidiary of Microsoft records 314bn profit The Irish Times Retrieved June 3 2021 a b Neate Rupert June 3 2021 Microsoft s Irish subsidiary paid zero corporation tax on 220bn profit The Guardian Retrieved June 3 2021 Doctorow Cory January 22 2020 The sordid tale of Microsoft s epic tax evasion and the war they waged against the IRS Boing Boing Retrieved February 15 2022 Kiel Paul The IRS Decided to Get Tough Against Microsoft Microsoft Got Tougher ProPublica Retrieved February 15 2022 Deadly embrace The Economist March 30 2000 Archived from the original on May 23 2018 Microsoft limits XML in Office 2003 Archived from the original on September 22 2005 Retrieved March 31 2006 US Department of Justice Proposed Findings of Fact Revised PDF Usdoj gov Archived PDF from the original on April 19 2000 Retrieved April 28 2016 US Department of Justice Proposed Findings of Fact Usdoj gov August 14 2015 Retrieved April 28 2016 Greenwald Glenn June 6 2013 NSA taps in to internet giants systems to mine user data secret files reveal The Guardian London Archived from the original on August 18 2006 Retrieved June 6 2013 Gellman Barton Poitras Laura June 6 2013 U S intelligence mining data from nine U S Internet companies in broad secret program The Washington Post Archived from the original on June 9 2013 Retrieved June 6 2013 Savage Charlie Wyatt Edward Baker Peter June 6 2013 U S says it gathers online data abroad The New York Times Archived from the original on February 16 2017 Retrieved February 18 2017 Google Facebook Dropbox Yahoo Microsoft And Apple Deny Participation In NSA PRISM Surveillance Program Tech Crunch June 6 2013 Archived from the original on June 13 2013 Retrieved June 6 2013 Gross Ashley Rev Jesse Jackson Praises Microsoft s Diversity Efforts But Urges The Company To Do More Archived from the original on December 8 2015 Retrieved December 3 2015 Licensing Options Service Providers Microsoft Volume Licensing May 3 2018 Retrieved February 16 2022 External linksOfficial website Business data for Microsoft Corporation BloombergGoogleReutersSEC filingsYahoo Microsoft companies grouped at OpenCorporates Portals Companies United StatesMicrosoft at Wikipedia s sister projects Media from Commons News from Wikinews Quotations from Wikiquote Resources from Wikiversity Coordinates 47 38 23 N 122 7 42 W 47 63972 N 122 12833 W 47 63972 122 12833 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Microsoft amp oldid 1130359477, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.