Microsoft is a world-famous software manufacturer for desktops, mobile devices, clusters, servers and gaming consoles. In addition to software, the company also manufactures game consoles, computer manipulators and audio players.
The history of the now powerful corporation began on April 14, 1975. Its founders were such well-known personalities (then they were unknown students), like Bill Gates (Bill Gates) and Paul Allen (Paul Allen). According to the official legend, they decided to develop a BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800 personal computer, manufactured by Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS). Students even managed to conclude an agreement with the manufacturer Altair, about the deliveries of the interpreter along with the device. The idea of selling software caused sharp criticism and misunderstanding in certain circles – programs were then written a little and they were freely distributed among programmers. At the same time, the first case of piracy was noted. However, the time confirmed the validity of Bill Gates – by the end of 1975, the company's revenues were estimated in thousands, which was very good for beginners.
But the real success came to Gates and his company along with IBM representatives who were looking for someone who would create an operating system for an IBM PC computer. It happened on August 12, 1981. The emergence of MS DOS (Disk Operation System) and determined the final fate of Microsoft. Later, on November 20, 1985, the first graphical shell for DOS, called Windows, appeared. A new era was beginning.
The name of the company was formed from two words: "MICROcomputer SOFTware". At first it was written through a hyphen: Micro-soft. The company several times changed the logo, without changing its essence; Only the font that was written "Microsoft" was changed. To date, this name no longer corresponds to the truth – the software is created not only for microcomputers, but also for high-performance servers.
The history of Microsoft is a story of dizzying success and constant development. The corporation repeatedly made mistakes and miscalculations, but always quickly corrected them, winning, as a result, all new and new areas for themselves and setting new records. And if the first year in Microsoft worked only three people (including the founders), then by 2008 their number was more than 80 thousand, in offices scattered around the world.
The list of software produced by Microsoft is huge. These are operating systems (MS-DOS, Windows), office packages (MS Office), Server applications (SQL Server …), development tools (Visual Studio, Visual FoxPro …), games (Age of Empires, Microsoft Flight Simulator …) and many other. Honored respect is enjoyed by keyboards and mice, produced under the Microsoft brand as well as an extremely popular game console Xbox. The excellent support service provided by the company deserves praise. It is impossible not to mention the search engine Bing, created to compete with Google.
But do not think that everything is so smooth. Microsoft became famous, first of all, as a monopolist, imposing its decisions. The policy of the corporation is extremely aggressive. Many of the company's products have become so popular not because they are the best, but because of their aggressive promotion to the market, which competitors could not afford. They also criticize the company for its "closed" software.
Microsoft's monopoly on the software market does not bother many. The corporation was repeatedly brought to justice. Some of the trials Microsoft lost, but it did not bring much harm to it. The main reason for this state of affairs is the absence of serious competitors. Operating systems and office packages that can challenge the company's products have appeared only recently, and have not yet managed to inflict at least some serious damage to it.
Microsoft headquarters is located in Redmond, Washington, USA (Redmond, Washington, USA).
The main competitors are: Apple Inc., Google Inc., Oracle Corporation.
Microsoft products are sold in more than 80 countries, the programs are translated into more than 45 languages.
Number of employees: 128 thousand people