As of 2015 [Update], Microsoft is dominant in the IBM PC-compatible operating systems market and the Office software suite market, although it has lost most of the entire operating system market to Android. [8] 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), digital services marketplace (via MSN), mixed reality (HoloLens), cloud computing (Azure), and software development (Visual Studio). Microsoft has a growing presence in the hardware industry after Xbox, releasing the Zune series of digital media players in 2006, successor to its previous software platform, Portable Media Center. These extended Microsoft`s previous hardware commitments after the original Microsoft mouse in 1983; In 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 Surface`s “digital table,” which was later renamed PixelSense. [58] Childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen tried to make a business with their computer programming skills. [16] In 1972, they founded Traf-O-Data, which sold a rudimentary computer for tracking and analyzing traffic data. Gates enrolled at Harvard University, while Allen earned a degree in computer science from Washington State University, though he later dropped out to work at Honeywell. The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics introduced the Altair 8800 microcomputer from Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS),[18] which inspired Allen to propose a BASIC interpreter for the device.[17] Gates called MITS claiming he had a working interpreter, and MITS asked for a demonstration.

Allen was working on a simulator for the Altair while Gates was developing the interpreter, and it worked perfectly when they presented it at MITS in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in March 1975. MITS agreed to distribute and market it under the name Altair BASIC. [15]:108, 112-114 Gates and Allen founded Microsoft on April 4, 1975, with Gates as CEO,[19] and Allen suggested the name “Micro-Soft,” short for microcomputer software. [20] [21] In August 1977, the company entered into an agreement with ASCII Magazine in Japan, which created its first Microsoft ASCII International Office. [22] Microsoft moved its headquarters to Bellevue, Washington in January 1979. [19] The company was founded on June 25, 1981 in Washington, D.C. as “Microsoft Corporation, Inc.” The name stuck with everyone in the company after Bill Gates started calling it that. With the formation of the company, it was announced that Bill Gates and Paul Allen would serve as chairman and executive vice president, respectively, both serving on Microsoft`s board of directors. The company was the official jersey sponsor of the Finnish national basketball team at EuroBasket 2015. [227] In 2001, Microsoft launched the Xbox, an electronic game console that quickly took second place in the video game market.

In 2002, it launched Xbox Live, a broadband gaming network for its consoles. A more powerful gaming console, the Xbox 360, was released in 2005. In a highly competitive market where the Xbox was under heavy pressure from the Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation, Microsoft has struggled over the years to make consistent profits with its console. For example, in 2009, the company lowered the price of the Xbox 360 Elite by up to 25% to gain market share. The move was successful; Until 2010, the Xbox 360 was the most widely used gaming console in the American country. At the same time, however, price cuts also led to a 6% drop in revenue from Microsoft`s Entertainment and Devices (EDD) division. The Xbox 360 was replaced by the Xbox One in 2013, which in turn was replaced by Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S in 2020. Microsoft Corporation (/ˈmaɪkroʊsɒft/ MY-kroh-soft) is an American multinational technology company based in Redmond, Washington.

It develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells software, consumer electronics, personal computers and related services. The most well-known software products are the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems, the Microsoft Office suite, and Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Flagship hardware products are Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface touchscreen PC line. Microsoft ranked 21st in the 2020 Fortune 500 list of the largest U.S. companies by total revenue; [3] It was the world`s largest software manufacturer by revenue in 2016. [4] It is considered one of the Big Five companies in the United States. The information technology industry, as well as Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook. Microsoft is an American multinational computer technology company whose history began on April 4, 1975. Founded by Bill Gates and his childhood friend Paul Allen, Microsoft is now the largest software company. It is also one of the most valuable companies in the world. Microsoft adopted the so-called “Pac-Man logo” in 1987, designed by Scott Baker. Baker explained: “Helvetica`s new logo in italics features a slash between the o and s to emphasize the `soft` part of the name and convey movement and speed.” [215] Dave Norris ran an internal joke campaign to save the old logo, which was green in capital letters and included an imaginative letter O dubbed blibbet, but it was dropped.

[216] Microsoft logo with the slogan “Your potential. Our Passion. ” – under the company`s main name – is based on a slogan used by Microsoft in 2008. In 2002, the company began using the logo in the United States and eventually launched a TV campaign with the tagline, which was changed from the previous slogan “Where do you want to go today?” [217] [218] [219] At the private MGX (Microsoft Global Exchange) conference in 2010, Microsoft unveiled the company`s next slogan: “Be What`s Next.” [220] They also had a slogan “Making it all make sense.” [221] After eight weeks, Allen and Gates presented their program to MITS, which agreed to distribute and market the product as Altair BASIC. The deal inspired Gates and Allen to start their own software company. Thus, Microsoft was founded on April 4, 1975 in Albuquerque, New Mexico – the home of MITS – with Gates as its first CEO. After Bill Gates` internal “Internet Tidal Wave Memo” on May 26, 1995, Microsoft began to redefine its offerings and expand its product line to include computer networking and the World Wide Web. [39] With a few exceptions from new ventures like Netscape, Microsoft was the only large established company that moved fast enough to be part of the World Wide Web virtually from the beginning. Other companies such as Borland, WordPerfect, Novell, IBM and Lotus, which are much slower to adapt to the new situation, would give Microsoft a dominant position in the market. [40] The company launched Windows 95 on August 24, 1995 with preventative multitasking, an all-new user interface with a new Start button, and 32-bit compatibility; Similar to NT, it provided the Win32 API. [41] [42]:20 Windows 95 was included with the MSN online service, which was originally intended to compete with the Internet, and (for OEMs) Internet Explorer, a Web browser.

The water pumping mechanisms, developed in part by researchers at Kindai University, use artificial intelligence to count the number of fish on a conveyor belt, analyze the number of fish and infer water flow efficiency from fish data. The specific computing programs used in this process fall under the Azure Machine Learning and Azure IoT Hub platforms. [122] In September 2018, Microsoft discontinued Skype Classic. [117] On October 10, 2018, Microsoft joined the Open Invention Network community despite more than 60,000 patents. [123] In November 2018, Microsoft agreed to deliver 100,000 Microsoft HoloLens headsets to the U.S. military to “increase lethality by improving the ability to recognize, decide, and attack in front of the enemy.” [124] In November 2018, Microsoft introduced Azure Multi-Factor Authentication for Microsoft Azure. [125] In December 2018, Microsoft announced Project Mu, an open source version of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) kernel used in Microsoft Surface and Hyper-V products.