Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded on April 4, 1975, by childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the company began as a small venture focused on developing and selling BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. Allen coined the name "Micro-Soft," short for microcomputer software. Microsoft rose to global prominence in the mid-1980s by securing a landmark deal with IBM to provide the operating system, MS-DOS, for its personal computers. This success was followed by the launch of Microsoft Windows in 1985, which eventually established a near-total monopoly on the personal computer operating system market, controlling upwards of 90% of the industry during the 1990s and early 2000s. Today, Microsoft stands as one of the world's most valuable public companies and a pillar of the global technology sector. Its core business operations are strategically organized into three primary segments: Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, and More Personal Computing. The Productivity and Business Processes division anchors the company's legacy of workplace efficiency, featuring the omnipresent Microsoft 365 suite, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, and Outlook, alongside the professional social networking platform LinkedIn and Dynamics enterprise solutions. The Intelligent Cloud segment represents a major growth engine for the firm, led by Microsoft Azure, the world’s second-largest cloud computing platform. This segment provides public, private, and hybrid server products, developer tools like Visual Studio and GitHub, and enterprise consulting services. More Personal Computing encompasses the flagship Windows operating system, the Surface lineup of personal computers and tablets, consumer search advertising via Bing, and a massive gaming ecosystem driven by the Xbox brand, Xbox network, and subscription models like Xbox Game Pass. Under the leadership of Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, who took the helm in 2014, Microsoft has aggressively pivoted toward artificial intelligence, integrating generative AI capabilities across its product portfolio under the Copilot brand and maintaining a core focus on low-carbon solutions and corporate sustainability. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025, Microsoft reported a massive consolidated revenue of US$281.7 billion, with a net income of US$101.8 billion, employing roughly 228,000 workers globally. The company remains highly influential across commercial software, cloud infrastructure, consumer electronics, and future AI development.

Microsoft Reviews

What people say about Microsoft