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Microsoft Corporation (MS) is an American multinational technology company with headquarters in Redmond, Washington. Microsoft develops, manufactures, licenses, supports, and sells computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services. The company has store locations and corporate campuses worldwide. Some of Microsoft's most recognized products include XBox, Office Suite, Internet Explorer, and the Windows operating systems.
Microsoft is one of the biggest companies in the world, operating in 190 countries with over 220,000 employees (120,000 in the US and 101,000 international), as of June 2023. The company recorded $227.584 billion in revenue for the twelve-month period ending on December 31, 2023. In January 2024, Microsoft became the second company, after Apple, to achieve a $3 trillion market cap. Microsoft common shares are traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market with the ticker symbol MSFT.
In recent years, Microsoft has begun developing AI-powered products. The company has invested $13 billion in OpenAI, acquiring a 49% stake. AI technology from Microsoft and OpenAI has been integrated into a range of Microsoft products. In 2023, Microsoft launched its AI assistant, Copilot, on Edge, Microsoft 365 products, and Windows 10 and 11. In November 2023, the company also introduced its first AI chip, the Azure Maia 100.
Microsoft's executive leadership team is made up of Satya Nadella (CEO), the president and vice chair, the chief marketing officer, the chief human resources officer, the chief financial officer, and the executive vice president for business development, strategy, and ventures. The company's board of directors is mostly made up of company outsiders. Board members are elected every year at the annual shareholders' meeting. After stepping down as CEO, in 2000, Bill Gates served on the board of Microsoft until March 2020.
Microsoft is divided into nine business groups:
- Business development group
- Corporate, external, and legal affairs
- Corporate strategy and planning
- Finance group
- Global sales, marketing, and operations
- HR group
- Marketing group
- Worldwide commercial business
The company's engineering groups are divided into three areas:
- Cloud and AI Group
- Experiences and devices
- Artificial intelligence and research
Since Microsoft's 2015 restructuring, heads of engineering groups report directly to CEO Satya Nadella.
Microsoft has made many acquisitions over the years, including the acquisition of LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in December 2016 and the acquisition of Skype for $8.5 billion in May 2011. Microsoft acquired the company Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion in January 2022. Other acquisitions by the company include GitHub in 2018 and Nokia Devices and Services in 2014.
Childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft on April 4, 1975. Allen quit his job as a programmer in Boston, and Gates left Harvard University, where he was a student, to start Microsoft. Originally called Micro-Soft, the company was started to produce software for the Altair 8800, an early personal computer developed by MITS, and was based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the same city as MITS.
By the end of 1978, Microsoft sales grew to over $1 million. On January 1, 1979, Microsoft moved its headquarters to Bellevue, Washington, the Seattle suburb where Gates and Allen grew up. On June 25, 1981, Microsoft was incorporated. The company went on to license its MS-DOS operating system to IBM for its first personal computer, introduced on August 12, 1981. In 1983, Allen left Microsoft. In 1985, Microsoft released Windows, its new operating system with a graphical user interface that included drop-down menus, scroll bars, and other features. In 1986, the company moved to its corporate campus in Redmond, Washington, and went public at $21 a share, raising $61 million. A year after going public, Gates became the world's youngest billionaire at thirty-one years old. By the late 1980s, Microsoft had grown to become the world’s largest personal computer software company, based on sales.
Microsoft introduced the first version of its Office suite of productivity applications in 1989 and Windows 3.0 in 1990. In 1995, Microsoft debuted Windows 95, selling 7 million copies of the new operating system in the first five weeks after launch. The same year, Microsoft introduced its web browser, Internet Explorer. In 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice charged Microsoft with violating antitrust laws by using its dominance to drive competitors out of business. The company reached a settlement with the government in 2001, imposing restrictions on its corporate practices.
On January 13, 2000, Steve Ballmer took over as CEO of the company. At this time, Microsoft began creating mobile devices and gaming consoles, releasing the first Xbox in 2001. Windows Vista and the 2007 Windows Office system were offered to consumers beginning in 2007. Microsoft began incorporating cloud technology into its software products in 2008, and it launched the Bing search engine that same year. The company produced the first Windows phone in 2010. Satya Nadella became the new CEO of Microsoft in 2014, and that same year, the company launched Windows for iPad and acquired Nokia Devices and Services. It first launched its line of Surface tablet computers in 2015.
In 2017, Microsoft launched Xbox One X, announced major renovations to its Redmond campus, broke ground on a new Silicon Valley campus, and opened a new campus in Dublin, Ireland.
