Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is a multinational computer technology corporation, developing, manufacturing, licensing and supporting a range of software products for computing devices. The company’s best selling products are the Windows operating system and the Office suite of productivity software. Such products have genuinely prominent positions in the market, with market share estimates up to 90% for Windows and Office.
Founded to develop BASIC interpreters for the famous Altair 8800, Microsoft went on to dominate the home PC operating system market in the mid 1980s. The company released IPO in the stock market which has remarkably made 4 billionaires and over 10,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees.
The company has, throughout its history, been the subject of criticism for different reasons, including anti competitive practices and monopoly status. The US Justice Department as well as the European Commission have ruled against Microsoft for antitrust violations
The history of Microsoft began on 4th April 1975 when it was established by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Its best selling products of all time are the Windows operating system and the Office suite of productivity software.
Starting in the early 1980s, Microsoft formed an essential partnership with IBM, allowing them to bundle Microsoft’s operating system with every computer they sold, paying Microsoft a fixed royalty for every sale. When Microsoft launched multiple versions of Microsoft Windows throughout the 1990s, they had captured more than 90% market share of the global personal computer market.
The company is now established as one of the most successful in the world. As of 2007, it has a global annual revenue of over 50 billion dollars and has nearly 80,000 employees in over 100 countries. Microsoft develops, produces, licenses and supports a variety of software products for all sorts of computing devices.