Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ The National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations known as NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. It is the largest electronic screen-based equity securities trading market in the United States. With approximately 3,800 companies and corporations, it has more trading volume per hour than any other stock exchange in the world: MSFT, HKEX The Hong Kong Stock Exchange (traditional Chinese: 香港交易所, also 港交所 , SEHK: 0388) is the stock exchange of Hong Kong. The exchange has predominantly been the main exchange for Hong Kong where shares of listed companies are traded. It is Asia's third largest stock exchange in terms of market capitalisation, behind the Tokyo Stock: 4338) is a United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the-based multinational A multinational corporation or transnational corporation (TNC), also called multinational enterprise (MNE), is a corporation or enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred to as an international corporation computer A computer is a machine that manipulates data according to a set of instructions technology corporation A corporation is a legal entity separate from the persons that own it. In British tradition it is the term designating a body corporate, where it can be either a corporation sole or a corporation aggregate (involving more persons). In American and, increasingly, international usage, the term denotes a body corporate formed to conduct business, and that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software Software includes things such as websites, programs or video games, that are coded by programming languages like C or C++ products for computing devices.^[8] Headquartered in Redmond Redmond is a city in King County, Washington, United States. The population was 45,256 at the 2000 census, with an estimated population of 48,739 in 2006. Redmond is best known as the home of Microsoft and Nintendo of America. With an annual bike race on city streets and the state's only velodrome, Redmond is also known as "the bicycle, Washington Washington ( /ˈwɑʃiŋtɪn/ ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory which had been ceded by Britain in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty as settlement of the Oregon Boundary Dispute. It was admitted to the Union as the 42nd state in 1889. The United States, USA The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the, its most profitable products are the Microsoft Windows Microsoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal operating system An operating system is an interface between hardware and user; an OS is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the resources of the computer. The operating system acts as a host for computing applications that are run on the machine. As a host, one of the purposes of an operating system is to handle the and the Microsoft Office Microsoft Office is an office suite of interrelated desktop applications, servers and services for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. Microsoft Office was introduced by Microsoft in 1989 for the Mac OS, with a version for Windows in 1990. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of Office suite of productivity software.

The company was founded to develop and sell BASIC In computer programming, BASIC is a family of high-level programming languages. The original BASIC was designed in 1964 by John George Kemeny and Thomas Eugene Kurtz at Dartmouth in New Hampshire, USA to provide computer access to non-science students. At the time, nearly all use of computers required writing custom software, which was something interpreters In computer science, an interpreter normally means a computer program that executes, i.e. performs, instructions written in a programming language for the Altair 8800 The MITS Altair 8800 was a microcomputer design from 1975, based on the Intel 8080 CPU and sold as a mail-order kit through advertisements in Popular Electronics, Radio-Electronics and other hobbyist magazines. The designers intended to sell only a few hundred to hobbyists, and were surprised when they sold thousands in the first month. Today the. Microsoft rose to dominate the home computer A home computer was a class of personal computer entering the market in 1977 and becoming common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as accessible personal computers, more capable than video game consoles. These computers typically cost much less than business, scientific or engineering-oriented desktop personal computers of the time, operating system market with MS-DOS MS-DOS is an operating system commercialized by Microsoft. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems and was the main operating system for personal computers during the 1980s. It was preceded by M-DOS (also called MIDAS), designed and copyrighted by Microsoft in 1979. MSDOS was based on the Intel 8086 family of in the mid-1980s, followed by the Windows Microsoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal line of operating systems. Its products have all achieved near-ubiquity in the desktop computer A desktop computer is a personal computer in a form intended for regular use at a single location, as opposed to a mobile laptop or portable computer. Prior to the wide spread of microprocessors a computer that could fit on a desk was considered remarkably small. Today the phrase usually indicates a particular style of computer case. Desktop market. One commentator notes that Microsoft's original mission was "a computer on every desk and in every home, running Microsoft software."^[9] Microsoft possesses footholds in other markets, with assets such as the MSNBC MSNBC is a 24-hour cable news channel based in the United States and available in both the US and Canada. Its name is a combination of "MSN" and "NBC" cable television Cable television is a system of providing television to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through fixed optical fibers or coaxial cables as opposed to the over-the-air method used in traditional television broadcasting in which a television antenna is required. FM radio programming, high-speed Internet, telephony, network, the MSN MSN is a collection of Internet services provided by Microsoft. The Microsoft Network debuted as an online service and Internet service provider on August 24, 1995, to coincide with the release of the Windows 95 Operating System Internet portal A web portal presents information from diverse sources in a unified way. Apart from the standard search engine feature, web portals offer other services such as e-mail, news, stock prices, information, and entertainment. Portals provide a way for enterprises to provide a consistent look and feel with access control and procedures for multiple, and the Microsoft Encarta Microsoft Encarta is a digital multimedia encyclopedia published by Microsoft Corporation since 1993. As of 2008[update], the complete English version, Encarta Premium consisted of more than 62,000 articles, numerous photos and illustrations, music clips, videos, interactivities, timelines, maps and atlas, and homework tools, and is available on multimedia encyclopedia. The company also markets both computer hardware A personal computer is made up of multiple physical components of computer hardware, upon which can be installed an operating system and a multitude of software to perform the operator's desired functions products such as the Microsoft mouse as well as home entertainment products such as the Xbox The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console produced by Microsoft. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market, and competed with Sony's PlayStation 2, Sega's Dreamcast, and Nintendo's GameCube. The integrated Xbox Live service allows players to compete online, Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft, and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles, Zune Zune is a product line of portable media players, manufactured by Microsoft. The line also includes Zune software and the Zune Marketplace services sold by Microsoft, which provide online music, video, and podcast downloads. Zune's primary competitors are the Apple iTunes/iPod product line and the SanDisk Sansa line. Zune players come in two and MSN TV MSN TV is the name of both a thin client which uses a television for display (rather than a computer monitor), and the online service that supports it.^[8] The company's initial public stock offering Initial public offering , also referred to simply as a "public offering" or "flotation," is when a company issues common stock or shares to the public for the first time. They are often issued by smaller, younger companies seeking capital to expand, but can also be done by large privately-owned companies looking to become (IPO) was in 1986; the ensuing rise of the company's stock price has made four billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees.^[10][11][12]

Throughout its history the company has been the target of criticism Criticism of Microsoft has followed various aspects of its products and business practices. Issues with ease of use, stability, and security of the company's software are common targets for critics. In the 2000s, a number of malware attacks have targeted security flaws in Microsoft Windows and other programs. Microsoft is also accused of locking, including monopolistic In economics, a monopoly exists when a specific individual or an enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it. Monopolies are thus characterized by a lack of economic competition for the good or service that they provide and a lack of business practices and anti-competitive strategies including refusal to deal Refusal to deal is one of several anti-competitive practices forbidden in countries which have restricted market economies. For example, in Australia: and tying Tying is the practice of making the sale of one good to the de facto or de jure customer conditional on the purchase of a second distinctive good (the tied good). It is often illegal when the products are not naturally related, for example requiring a bookstore to stock up on an unpopular title before allowing them to purchase a bestseller. Tying. The U.S. Justice Department The United States Department of Justice is a Cabinet department in the United States government designed to enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans (see 28 U.S.C. § 501). The DOJ is administered by the United States Attorney and the European Commission The European Commission is the executive branch of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union, among others, have ruled United States v. Microsoft was a set of consolidated civil actions filed against Microsoft Corporation on May 18, 1998 by the United States Department of Justice and 20 U.S. states. Joel I. Klein was the lead prosecutor. The plaintiffs alleged that Microsoft abused monopoly power on Intel-based personal computers in its handling of operating against The European Union Microsoft competition case is a case brought by the European Commission of the European Union against Microsoft for abuse of its dominant position in the market (according to competition law). It started as a complaint from Novell over Microsoft's licensing practices in 1993, and eventually resulted in the EU ordering Microsoft Microsoft for various antitrust The substance and practice of competition law varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Protecting the interests of consumers and ensuring that entrepreneurs have an opportunity to compete in the market economy are often treated as important objectives. Competition law is closely connected with law on deregulation of access to markets, state aids violations.^[13][14]

Contents 1 History 1.1 1975–1984: Founding 1.2 1985–1994: IPO, OS/2 and Windows 1.2.1 IPO 1.2.2 Post-IPO 1.3 1995–2005: Internet and legal issues 1.4 2006–present: Vista and other transitions 2 Product divisions 2.1 Platform Products and Services Division 2.2 Business Division 2.3 Entertainment and Devices Division 3 Economic impact 4 User culture 5 Corporate affairs 5.1 Corporate structure 5.2 Stock 5.3 Diversity 5.4 Logos and slogans 6 Environmental record 7 Criticism 7.1 Anti-competitive 7.2 Freedom and privacy 7.3 Misrepresentation 8 See also 9 Notes and references 10 External links

History

Main article: History of Microsoft See also: History of Microsoft Windows In 1983 Microsoft announced the development of Windows, a graphical user interface for its own operating system (MS-DOS), which had shipped for IBM PC and compatible computers since 1981. Since then, Microsoft has shipped many versions of Windows, and the product line has changed from a GUI product to a modern operating system

1975–1984: Founding

Following the launch of the Altair 8800 The MITS Altair 8800 was a microcomputer design from 1975, based on the Intel 8080 CPU and sold as a mail-order kit through advertisements in Popular Electronics, Radio-Electronics and other hobbyist magazines. The designers intended to sell only a few hundred to hobbyists, and were surprised when they sold thousands in the first month. Today the, William Henry Gates III, (known as Bill Gates William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, philanthropist, author, and chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen. He is ranked consistently one of the world's wealthiest people and the wealthiest overall as of 2009. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief) called the creators of the new microcomputer A microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. Another general characteristic of these computers is that they occupy physically small amounts of space when compared to mainframe and minicomputers. Many microcomputers are also personal computers (in the generic sense), Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems was an Albuquerque, New Mexico company founded in 1969 by Forrest Mims and Ed Roberts. The first product was a transistorized tracking light for the night launch of model rockets. This appeared in the September 1969 issue of Model Rocketry magazine. Other kits followed for the model rocket hobbyist (MITS), offering to demonstrate an implementation of the BASIC programming language In computer programming, BASIC is a family of high-level programming languages. The original BASIC was designed in 1964 by John George Kemeny and Thomas Eugene Kurtz at Dartmouth in New Hampshire, USA to provide computer access to non-science students. At the time, nearly all use of computers required writing custom software, which was something for the system. After the demonstration, MITS agreed to distribute Altair BASIC Altair BASIC was an interpreter for the BASIC programming language that ran on the MITS Altair 8800 and subsequent S-100 bus computers. It was Microsoft's first product , distributed by MITS under a contract. Altair BASIC was the start of the Microsoft BASIC product range.^[15] Gates William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, philanthropist, author, and chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen. He is ranked consistently one of the world's wealthiest people and the wealthiest overall as of 2009. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief left Harvard University Harvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. It is also the first and oldest corporation in North America. Administratively, Harvard comprises ten, moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico Albuquerque is the largest city in the state of New Mexico, United States. It is the county seat of Bernalillo County and is situated in the central part of the state, straddling the Rio Grande. The city population was 518, 271 as of July 1, 2007, according to U.S. census estimates, and ranks as the 34th-largest city in the U.S. As of June 2007, where MITS was located, and founded Microsoft there. The company's first international office was founded on November 1, 1978, in Japan, titled "ASCII Microsoft" (now called "Microsoft Japan").^[15] On January 1, 1979, the company moved from Albuquerque to a new home in Bellevue, Washington.^[15] Steve Ballmer joined the company on June 11, 1980, and later succeeded Bill Gates as CEO.^[15]

Among pre-IBM-PC products were the software package TASC (The AppleSoft Compiler), which compiled a BASIC program into Apple machine language, and the hardware Microsoft Softcard, an add-on Z80 processor card for the Apple II and compatible computers which allowed the use of the CP/M operating system instead of Applesoft and Apple DOS. In 1980, Microsoft entered the operating system business with its own version of Unix, called Xenix, which it licensed to various computer vendors.

DOS (Disk Operating System) was the operating system that brought the company its first real success. On August 12, 1981, after negotiations with Digital Research failed, IBM awarded a contract to Microsoft to provide a version of the CP/M operating system, which was set to be used in the upcoming IBM Personal Computer (PC). For this deal, Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products, which IBM renamed to PC-DOS. Later, the market saw a flood of IBM PC clones after Columbia Data Products successfully cloned the IBM BIOS, and by aggressively marketing MS-DOS to manufacturers of IBM-PC clones, Microsoft rose from a small player to one of the major software vendors in the home computer industry.^{[16][17][18][19][20][21][22]} The company expanded into new markets with the release of the Microsoft Mouse in 1983, as well as a publishing division named Microsoft Press.^[15]

1985–1994: IPO, OS/2 and Windows

In August 1985, Microsoft and IBM partnered in the development of a different operating system called OS/2.^[23] On November 20, 1985, Microsoft released its first retail version of Microsoft Windows, originally a graphical extension for its MS-DOS operating system.^[15] On March 13, 1986 the company went public with an initial public offering (IPO), with a starting initial offering price of $21.00 and ending at the first day of trading as at US $28.00. The ensuing rise of the stock price has made four billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees.^[11][24][25] In 1987, Microsoft eventually released their first version of OS/2 to OEMs.^[26]

IPO

Microsoft's Initial Public Offering occurred on March 14, 1986. The stock closed at $27.75 per share after peaking at $29.25 shortly after the opening. Microsoft's two founders, Gates and Allen, were made instant millionaires. Gates owned 45% of the company's 24.7 million outstanding shares and Allen roughly 25%.^[27] Gates' stake was therefore $234 million and Microsoft's total-value $520million, at that time.^[28]

Post-IPO

The sign at a main entrance to the Microsoft corporate campus. The Redmond Microsoft campus today includes more than 750,000 m² (approx. 8 million square feet) and over 30,000 employees.^[29]

In 1989, Microsoft introduced its flagship office suite, Microsoft Office. The software bundled separate office productivity applications, such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.^[15] On May 22, 1990 Microsoft launched Windows 3.0.^[30] The new version of Microsoft's operating system boasted such new features as streamlined user interface graphics and improved protected mode capability for the Intel 386 processor; it sold over 100,000 copies in two weeks.^[31] Windows at the time generated more revenue for Microsoft than OS/2, and the company decided to move more resources from OS/2 to Windows.^[32] In the ensuing years, the popularity of OS/2 declined, and Windows quickly became the favored PC platform.

During the transition from MS-DOS to Windows, the success of Microsoft's product Microsoft Office allowed the company to gain ground on application-software competitors, such as WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3.^[33][34] According to The Register, Novell, an owner of WordPerfect for a time, alleged that Microsoft used its inside knowledge of the DOS and Windows kernels and of undocumented Application Programming Interface features to make Office perform better than its competitors.^[35] Eventually, Microsoft Office became the dominant business suite, with a market share far exceeding that of its competitors.^[36]

In 1993, Microsoft released Windows NT 3.1, a business operating system with the Windows 3.1 user interface but an entirely different kernel.^[33]

1995–2005: Internet and legal issues

In 1995, Microsoft released Windows 95, a new version of the company's flagship operating system which featured a completely new user interface, including a novel start button; more than a million copies of Microsoft Windows 95 were sold in the first four days after its release.^[33] The company also released its web browser, Internet Explorer, with the Windows 95 Plus! Pack in August 1995 and subsequent Windows versions.^[37]

On, May 26, 1995, following Bill Gates's internal "Internet Tidal Wave memo",^[38] Microsoft began to expand its product line into computer networking and the World Wide Web. On August 24, 1995, it launched a major online service, MSN (Microsoft Network), as a direct competitor to AOL. MSN became an umbrella service for Microsoft's online services.^[15][33][39] The company continued to branch out into new markets in 1996, starting with a joint venture with NBC to create a new 24/7 cable news station, MSNBC.^[33][40] Microsoft entered the personal digital assistant (PDA) market in November with Windows CE 1.0, a new built-from-scratch version of their flagship operating system, specifically designed to run on low-memory, low-performance machines, such as handhelds and other small computers.^[41] Later in 1997, Internet Explorer 4.0 was released for both Mac OS and Windows, marking the beginning of the takeover of the browser market from rival Netscape. In October, the Justice Department filed a motion in the Federal District Court in which they stated that Microsoft had violated an agreement signed in 1994, and asked the court to stop the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows.^[15]

The year 1998 was significant in Microsoft's history, with Bill Gates appointing Steve Ballmer as president of Microsoft but remaining as Chair and CEO himself.^[15] The company released Windows 98, an update to Windows 95 that incorporated a number of Internet-focused features and support for new types of devices.^[15] On April 3, 2000, a judgment was handed down in the case of United States v. Microsoft,^[13] calling the company an "abusive monopoly"^[42] and forcing the company to split into two separate units. Part of this ruling was later overturned by a federal appeals court, and eventually settled with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2001.

In 2001, Microsoft released Windows XP, the first version that encompassed the features of both its business and home product lines. Before XP was released, Microsoft had to maintain both the NT and the 9x codebase. XP introduced a new graphical user interface, the first such change since Windows 95.^[15][43] In late 2001, with the release of the Xbox, Microsoft entered the multi-billion-dollar game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo.^[15] Microsoft encountered turmoil in March 2004 when antitrust legal action was brought against it by the European Union for abusing its current dominance with the Windows operating system (see European Union Microsoft antitrust case), eventually resulting in a judgment to produce new versions of its Windows XP platform—called Windows XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N—that did not include its Windows Media Player, as well as a fine of €497 million ($613 million).^[44][45]

2006–present: Vista and other transitions

The entrance sign of Microsoft at a German Campus.

On June 27, 2008, Bill Gates retired from day-to day activities in the company, following a two year transition period from his role as Chief Software Architect, which was taken by Ray Ozzie, but remained the company's chairman, head of the Board of Directors and would act as an adviser on key projects.^[46] Windows Vista, released in January 2007, is Microsoft's latest operating system and had sold 300 million copies by December 2008.^[47] Microsoft Office 2007, released at the same time, features a "Ribbon" user interface which is a significant departure from its predecessors. Relatively strong sales of both titles helped to produce a record profit in 2007.^[48]

On February 1, 2008, Microsoft made an unsolicited bid to purchase internet services competitor Yahoo! for up to $44.6 billion,^[49] though this offer was rejected on February 10. On May 3, 2008, Microsoft withdrew their offer.^[50]

Microsoft announced on February 21, 2008 that it will share information about its products and technology to make it easier for developers to create software that works with its products.^[51] and followed that up by providing such information^[52]. However, the European Union continued to demonstrate its dissatisfaction with the company for its lack of compliance with the March 2004 judgment and subsequently, on February 27, 2008 imposed a fine of €899 million ($1.4 billion), then the largest fine in the history of EU competition policy.^[53]

In its January 2009 report of financial results, Microsoft announced layoffs of up to 5,000 employees in response to slowing economic activity due to the ongoing financial crisis.^[54]

On February 12, 2009, Microsoft announced its intent to open a small chain of Microsoft-branded retail stores. David Porter, a former executive at Wal-Mart and DreamWorks, was named corporate vice president of Retail Stores.^[55][56]

NBC Universal and Microsoft Corporation have teamed up in an effort to sell NBC Universal's broadcast and cable advertising using Admira, the software giant's automated planning and buying tool.^[57]

Product divisions

To be more precise in tracking performance of each unit and delegating responsibility, Microsoft reorganized into seven core business groups—each an independent financial entity—in April 2002. Later, on September 20, 2005, Microsoft announced a rationalization of its original seven business groups into the three core divisions that exist today: the Windows Client, MSN and Server and Tool groups were merged into the Microsoft Platform Products and Services Division; the Information Worker and Microsoft Business Solutions groups were merged into the Microsoft Business Division; and the Mobile and Embedded Devices and Home and Entertainment groups were merged into the Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Division.^[58][59]

Platform Products and Services Division

The current logo of Microsoft Windows, the company's signature product.

This division produces Microsoft's flagship product, the Windows operating system. It has been produced in many versions, including Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP and Windows Vista. Almost all IBM compatible personal computers come with Windows preinstalled. The current desktop version of Windows is Windows Vista. The online service MSN, the cable television station MSNBC and the Microsoft online magazine Slate are all part of this division. (Slate was acquired by The Washington Post on December 21, 2004.) At the end of 1997, Microsoft acquired Hotmail, the most popular webmail service, which it rebranded as "MSN Hotmail". In 1999, Microsoft introduced MSN Messenger, an instant messaging client, to compete with the popular AOL Instant Messenger. Along with Windows Vista, MSN Messenger became Windows Live Messenger.^[8]

Microsoft Visual Studio is the company's set of programming tools and compilers. The software product is GUI-oriented and links easily with the Windows APIs, but must be specially configured if used with non-Microsoft libraries. The current version is Visual Studio 2008. The previous version, Visual Studio 2005 was a major improvement over its predecessor, Visual Studio.Net 2003, named after the .NET initiative, a Microsoft marketing initiative covering a number of technologies. Microsoft's definition of .NET continues to evolve. As of 2004, .NET aims to ease the development of Microsoft Windows-based applications that use the Internet, by deploying a new Microsoft communications system, Indigo (now renamed Windows Communication Foundation). This is intended to address some issues previously introduced by Microsoft's DLL design, which made it difficult, even impossible in some situations, to manage, install multiple versions of complex software packages on the same system (see DLL-hell), and provide a more consistent development platform for all Windows applications (see Common Language Infrastructure). In addition, the Company established a set of certification programs to recognize individuals who have expertise in its software and solutions. Similar to offerings from Cisco, Sun Microsystems, Novell, IBM, and Oracle Corporation, these tests are designed to identify a minimal set of proficiencies in a specific role; this includes developers ("Microsoft Certified Solution Developer"), system/network analysts ("Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer"), trainers ("Microsoft Certified Trainers") and administrators ("Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator" and "Microsoft Certified Database Administrator").^[8]

Microsoft offers a suite of server software, titled Windows Server System. Windows Server 2003, an operating system for network servers, is the core of the Windows Server System line. Another server product, Systems Management Server, is a collection of tools providing remote-control abilities, patch management, software distribution and a hardware/software inventory. Other server products include:

• Microsoft SQL Server, a relational database management system;
• Microsoft Exchange Server, for certain business-oriented e-mail and scheduling features;
• Small Business Server, for messaging and other small business-oriented features; and
• Microsoft BizTalk Server, for business process management.^[8]

Business Division

Front entrance to building 17 on the main campus of the company's Redmond campus.

The Microsoft Business Division produces Microsoft Office, which is the company's line of office software. The software product includes Word (a word processor), Access (a personal relational database application), Excel (a spreadsheet program), Outlook (Windows-only groupware, frequently used with Exchange Server), PowerPoint (presentation software), and Publisher (desktop publishing software). A number of other products were added later with the release of Office 2003 including Visio, Project, MapPoint, InfoPath and OneNote.^[8]

The division also develops financial and business management software for companies. These products include products formerly produced by the Business Solutions Group, which was created in April 2001 with the acquisition of Great Plains. Subsequently, Navision was acquired to provide a similar entry into the European market, resulting in the planned release of Microsoft Dynamics NAV in 2006. The group markets Axapta and Solomon, catering to similar markets, which is scheduled to be combined with the Navision and Great Plains lines into a common platform called Microsoft Dynamics.^[8]

Entertainment and Devices Division

The Xbox 360, Microsoft's second system in the gaming console market.

Microsoft has attempted to expand the Windows brand into many other markets, with products such as Windows CE for PDAs and its "Windows-powered" Smartphone products. Microsoft initially entered the mobile market through Windows CE for handheld devices, which today has developed into Windows Mobile 6. The focus of the operating system is on devices where the OS may not directly be visible to the end user, in particular, appliances and cars.

The company produces MSN TV, formerly WebTV, a television-based Internet appliance. Microsoft used to sell a set-top Digital Video Recorder (DVR) called the UltimateTV, which allowed users to record up to 35 hours of television programming from a direct-to-home satellite television provider DirecTV. This was the main competition in the UK for British Sky Broadcasting's (BSkyB) SKY + service, owned by Rupert Murdoch. UltimateTV has since been discontinued, with DirecTV instead opting to market DVRs from TiVo Inc. before later switching to their own DVR brand.^[8]

Microsoft sells computer games that run on Windows PCs, including titles such as Age of Empires, Halo and the Microsoft Flight Simulator series. It produces a line of reference works that include encyclopedias and atlases, under the name Encarta. Microsoft Zone hosts free premium and retail games where players can compete against each other and in tournaments.

Microsoft entered the multi-billion-dollar game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo in late 2001,^[60] with the release of the Xbox. The company develops and publishes its own video games for this console, with the help of its Microsoft Game Studios subsidiary, in addition to third-party Xbox video game publishers such as Electronic Arts and Activision, who pay a license fee to publish games for the system. The Xbox also has a successor in the Xbox 360, released on November 22, 2005 in North America and other countries.^[61][62] With the Xbox 360, Microsoft hopes to compensate for the losses incurred with the original Xbox. However, Microsoft made some decisions considered controversial in the video gaming community, such as releasing the console with high failure rates, selling two different versions of the system, one without the hard disk drive and providing limited backward compatibility with only particular Xbox titles.^[63][64] .

In addition to the Xbox line of products, Microsoft also markets a number of other computing-related hardware products as well, including mice, keyboards, joysticks, and gamepads, along with other game controllers, the production of which is outsourced in most cases. As of November 15, 2007, Microsoft announced the purchase of Musiwave, Openwave's mobile phone music sales business.^[65]

Economic impact

One of Bill Gates' key visions for the company was to "to get a workstation running our software onto every desk and eventually in every home".^[42][66][67] Because of their huge market share in home and business operating systems, they play an important role in the economics of software.

Microsoft has footholds in other markets besides operating systems and office suites, with assets such as the MSNBC cable television network, the MSN Internet portal, and the Microsoft Encarta multimedia encyclopedia. The company also markets both computer hardware products such as the Microsoft mouse and home entertainment products such as the Xbox, Xbox 360, Zune and MSN TV.^[8]

User culture

Technical reference for developers and articles for various Microsoft magazines such as Microsoft Systems Journal (or MSJ) are available through the Microsoft Developer Network, often called 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.^[68][69] In recent years, Microsoft launched a community site for developers and users, titled Channel9, which provides many modern features such as a wiki and an Internet forum.^[70] Another community site that provides daily videocasts and other services, On10.net, launched on March 3, 2006.^[71]

Most free technical support available through Microsoft is provided through online Usenet newsgroups (in the early days it was also provided on CompuServe). There are several of these newsgroups for nearly every product Microsoft provides, and often they are monitored by Microsoft employees. People who are helpful on the newsgroups can be elected by other peers or Microsoft employees for Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) status, which entitles people to a sort of special social status, in addition to possibilities for awards and other benefits.^[72]

Corporate affairs

Corporate structure

The company is run by a Board of Directors consisting of ten people, made up of mostly company outsiders (as is customary for publicly traded companies). Current members of the board of directors are: Steve Ballmer, James Cash, Jr., Dina Dublon, Bill Gates, Raymond Gilmartin, Reed Hastings, David Marquardt, Charles Noski, Helmut Panke, and Jon Shirley.^[73] The ten board members are elected every year at the annual shareholders' meeting, and those who do not get a majority of votes must submit a resignation to the board, which will subsequently choose whether or not to accept the resignation. There are five committees within the board which 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 Finance Committee, which handles financial matters such as proposing mergers and acquisitions; the Governance and Nominating Committee, which handles various corporate matters including nomination of the board; and the Antitrust Compliance Committee, which attempts to prevent company practices from violating antitrust laws.^[74][75]

There are several other aspects to the corporate structure of Microsoft. For worldwide matters there is the Executive Team, made up of sixteen company officers across the globe, which is charged with various duties including making sure employees understand Microsoft's culture of business. The sixteen officers of the Executive Team include the Chairman and Chief Software Architect, the CEO, the General Counsel and Secretary, the CFO, senior and group vice presidents from the business units, the CEO of the Europe, the Middle East and Africa regions; and the heads of Worldwide Sales, Marketing and Services; Human Resources; and Corporate Marketing. In addition to the Executive Team there is also the Corporate Staff Council, which handles all major staff functions of the company, including approving corporate policies. The Corporate Staff Council is made up of employees from the Law and Corporate Affairs, Finance, Human Resources, Corporate Marketing, and Advanced Strategy and Policy groups at Microsoft. Other Executive Officers include the Presidents and Vice Presidents of the various product divisions, leaders of the marketing section, and the CTO, among others.^[76][8]

Stock

Microsoft Corp (NYSE:MSFT) stock price (source: ZenoBank.com)

When the company debuted its IPO in March 13, 1986, the stock price was US $21.^[77][78] By the close of the first trading day, the stock had closed at $28, equivalent to 9.7 cents when adjusted for the company's first nine splits.^[78] The initial close and ensuing rise in subsequent years made several Microsoft employees millions.^[11] The stock price peaked in 1999 at around US $119 (US $60.928 adjusting for splits).^[78] While the company has had nine stock splits, the first of which was in September 18, 1987, the company did not start offering a dividend until January 16, 2003.^[78][79] The dividend for the 2003 fiscal year was eight cents per share, followed by a dividend of sixteen cents per share the subsequent year.^[79] The company switched from yearly to quarterly dividends in 2005, for eight cents a share per quarter with a special one-time payout of three dollars per share for the second quarter of the fiscal year.^[79]

Despite the company's ninth split on February 2, 2003 and subsequent increases in dividend payouts, the price of Microsoft's stock largely remained steady for the next several years,^[79][80] with a rise in stock price around the release of Windows Vista and a fall during the economic crisis of 2008.

Diversity

Flags raised in front of the Microsoft Sammamish Campus in Issaquah, Washington. The flag on the left is the flag of Microsoft's gay and lesbian employees group GLEAM.

In 2005, Microsoft received a 100% rating in the Corporate Equality Index from the Human Rights Campaign, a ranking of companies by how progressive the organization deems their policies concerning LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) employees. Partly through the work of the Gay and Lesbian Employees at Microsoft (GLEAM) group, Microsoft added gender expression to its anti-discrimination policies in April 2005, and the Human Rights Campaign upgraded Microsoft's Corporate Equality Index from its 86% rating in 2004 to its current 100% rating.^[81][82]

In April 2005, Microsoft received wide criticism for withdrawing support from Washington state's H.B. 1515 bill that would have extended the state's current anti-discrimination laws to people with alternate sexual orientations.^[83] Microsoft was accused of bowing to pressure from local evangelical pastor Ken Hutcherson who met with a senior Microsoft executive and threatened a national boycott of Microsoft's products.^[84] Microsoft also revealed they were paying evangelical conservative Ralph Reed's company Century Strategies a $20,000 monthly fee.^[85] Over 2,000 employees signed a petition asking Microsoft to reinstate support for the bill.^[86] Under harsh criticism from both outside and inside the company's walls, Microsoft decided to support the bill again in May 2005.^[86][87]

Microsoft hires many foreign workers as well as domestic ones, and is an outspoken opponent of the cap on H1B visas, which allow companies in the United States to employ certain foreign workers. Bill Gates claims the cap on H1B visas make it difficult to hire employees for the company, stating "I'd certainly get rid of the H1B cap."^[88]

Logos and slogans

In 1987, Microsoft adopted its current logo, the so-called "Pac-Man Logo", designed by Scott Baker. According to the March 1987 Computer Reseller News Magazine, "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." Dave Norris, a Microsoft employee, 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.^[89]

Microsoft's logo with the "Your potential. Our passion." tagline below the main corporate name, is based on the slogan Microsoft had as of 2008. In 2002, the company started using the logo in the United States and eventually started a TV campaign with the slogan, changed from the previous tagline of "Where do you want to go today?."^[90][91][92]

Microsoft "blibbet" logo, used until 1987.

Microsoft "Pac-Man" logo, designed by Scott Baker and used since 1987, with the 1994–2002 slogan "Where do you want to go today?"[90][91]

Microsoft logo as of 2009, with the current slogan "Your potential. Our passion."[91]

Environmental record

Microsoft was ranked the 2nd worst company for the environment out of 18 companies rated in Greenpeace's Greener Electronics guide in June, 2008. It received a score of 2.2/10, ahead only of Nintendo.^[93]

Microsoft has taken actions to become more environmentally friendly.^[94] Some examples include:

• Microsoft's newest building on its campus in Hyderabad, India was built as an environmentally friendly structure. Microsoft Research India developed a project called Digital Green in 2008, which aims to educate farmers in India on how to use azolla - an aquatic fern fed to cows, yielding increased milk production.^[95][96]
• Microsoft has phased out the use of polyvinyl chloride plastic in its packaging material, due to environmental concern, and to match actions by competitors.^[97] Polyvinyl chloride, also referred to as PVC or vinyl, can release toxins into the environment during production and if it is burned after production. These toxins are synthetic chemicals that can be linked to cancer, and issues with the reproductive and immune systems. In six months time, Microsoft was able to eliminate approximately 361,000 pounds of polyvinyl packaging by transitioning to a packaging utilizing polyethylene terephthalate plastic (PET). The company claims to be examining eco-friendly packaging made of corn starch, sugar, and vegetable oil.^[97]
• The company has installed over 2,000 solar panels spanning 30,000 square feet (2,800 m²) on top of its buildings in its Silicon Valley campus.^[98] These panels supply 480 kilowatts of power, generating approximately 15 percent of the total energy needed by the campus and cutting the greenhouse gasses that would otherwise be produced to supply that power.^[94]
• Microsoft has created one of the worlds largest private bus systems (the "Connector") as mass transit system in the Seattle area. Employees, interns, vendors and contractors are encouraged to use regional public mass transit with subsidised fares. For on-campus transportation, the "Shuttle Connect" uses a large fleet of hybrid cars, saving over 20,000 galons of fuel per year.^[94][99]
• The company uses an irrigation system at its Redmond campus that senses upcoming weather changes, saving 11 million gallons of water per year.^[100] The company has received a silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED program for environmental design.^[94]
• Beginning in June 2008, Microsoft has added compost bins in all cafeterias on its Redmond campus, and replaced all polystyrene plates and cups and plastic flatware with biodegradable alternatives. In the first two months after this transition, the Redmond campus reduced its non-compost trash output by 50%.

Criticism

Main article: Criticism of Microsoft

Anti-competitive

Since the 1980s, Microsoft has been the focus of much controversy in the computer industry.^[101] The majority of criticism has been for its business tactics, often described with the motto "embrace, extend and extinguish". Microsoft initially embraces a competing standard or product, then extends it to produce their own version which is then incompatible with the standard, which in time extinguishes competition that does not or cannot use Microsoft's new version.^[102] These and other tactics have resulted in lawsuits brought by companies and governments, and billions of dollars in rulings against Microsoft.^{[103][13][45]} In January 2009, Opera Software ASA filed a complaint to the European Commission stating that Microsoft's inclusion of Internet Explorer with Windows-based personal computers is a violation of European competition laws.^[104]

Freedom and privacy

Free software proponents point to the company's joining of the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA) as a cause of concern. A group of companies that seek to implement an initiative called Trusted Computing (computing in which a computer is not only secured for its owner, but also secured against its owner as well), TCPA is decried by critics as it allows software developers and platform controllers to enforce indiscriminate restrictions over how consumers use software, and over how computers behave.^{[105][106]:23[107][108]}

“ Large media corporations (including the movie companies and record companies), together with computer companies such as Microsoft and Intel, are planning to make your computer obey them instead of you.”

Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation^[109]

Advocates of free software also take issue with Microsoft's promotion of Digital Rights Management (DRM) and total cost of ownership (TCO) comparisons with its "Get the facts" campaign. Digital Rights Management is a technology that allows content providers to impose restrictions on the methods by which digital media is used on consumer hardware; and subsequently, detractors contend that such technology may infringe on fair use and other rights, especially given that it restricts legal activities such as re-mixing or reproduction of material for use in slide shows or the resale of the goods by the customer.^[110][111]

Misrepresentation

The "Get the facts" campaign argues that Windows Server has a lower TCO than Linux and lists a variety of studies in order to prove its case.^[112] Proponents of Linux unveiled their own study arguing that, contrary to one of Microsoft's claims, Linux has lower management costs than Windows Server.^[113] Another study by the Yankee Group claims that upgrading from one version of Windows Server to another costs a significant fraction (a quarter to a third) of the switching costs from Windows Server to Linux, even for large enterprises, and that the other major reasons for a switch away from Windows servers were the increased security and reliability of Linux servers and a chance to escape the Microsoft "lock-in".^[114]

In 2004, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) of the UK warned Microsoft that an ad from the campaign which claimed that "Linux was ... 10 times more expensive than Windows Server 2003", was "misleading", as the hardware chosen for the Linux server was needlessly expensive.^[115] The ASA's complaint was that "the measurements for Linux were performed on an IBM zSeries [mainframe], which was more expensive and did not perform as well as other IBM series." The comparison was to Windows Server 2003 running on two 900 MHz Intel Xeon CPUs.^[116]

David Meyer writing on Zdnet.com pointed out that, "Microsoft has a long history of applying for, and being granted patents for, inventions that many argue--and can sometimes demonstrate--were based on earlier work carried out by others, or based on a common, self-evident idea."^[117] This was in response to its 2008 patent application for the ability to progress in page-up or page-down increments with a single keystroke — a method that has been pervasive for decades.^[118]

See also

Microsoft portal

Xbox 360 portal

Companies portal

General

• Pirates of Silicon Valley − A movie based on the rise of Apple and Microsoft.

Microsoft

• Actimates − Set of toys developed by Microsoft.
• PCsafety − Part of Microsoft's technical support that deals with malware and virus issues.
• Trustworthy Computing − Microsoft's initiative for increasing security and reliability on PCs.
• Ultra Mobile PC − Joint specification by Microsoft and others for a small form factor tablet PC.
• Microsoft Studios − A division responsible for the creation of video content for Microsoft and its partners.
• Microsoft Research − A division responsible for the research of computer science.
• Studies related to Microsoft
• Microsoft litigation
• Virus Information Alliance - An international partnership created by the Microsoft Corporation in association with various antivirus vendors.
• Optimization (Infrastructure & Application Platform)

Lists

• List of mergers and acquisitions by Microsoft
• List of assets owned by Microsoft Corporation
• List of Microsoft software applications
• List of Microsoft topics
• List of Microsoft Office Programs

Notes and references

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2. ^ microsoft.com/games/
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5. ^ zune.net
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45. ^ ^{a b} "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. 2004-04-21. http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/antitrust/cases/decisions/37792/en.pdf. Retrieved on August 5 2005. (from the official EU website)
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49. ^ 5th UPDATE: Microsoft Offers To Buy Yahoo For $44.6 Billion
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51. ^ Microsoft offers to share some secrets
52. ^ Microsoft Publicly Posts Additional Protocol Documentation
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98. ^ Microsoft Solar - Solar Times
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