Microsoft

Microsoft Company is a global technology corporation based in Redmond, Washington, that manufactures computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and associated services. One of Microsoft's most well-known software products is the Windows series of operating systems, which includes the Microsoft Office suite, as well as the Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. In terms of hardware, the Xbox video game consoles and Microsoft Surface range of touchscreen personal computers are the company's most prominent offerings. Microsoft was placed No. 21 in the 2020 Fortune 500 rankings of the biggest companies in the United States based on total revenue; as of 2016, it was the world's largest software producer in terms of revenue. With Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook, it is regarded to be one of the Big Five firms in the United States information technology sector (together with the others).

Microsoft (which is a portmanteau of "microcomputer software") was established on April 4, 1975, by Bill Gates and Paul Allen with the goal of developing and selling BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800 computer system. With the introduction of MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, it quickly ascended to become the dominant personal computer operating system, followed by Microsoft Windows. The company's initial public offering (IPO) in 1986, as well as the following increase in its share price, resulted in the creation of three billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires among its workers, according to estimates. As a result of its diversification from the operating system market since the 1990s, the company has made a number of corporate acquisitions, their most significant being the acquisition of LinkedIn for $26.2 billion as Of december 2016, followed by the acquisition of Skype Technologies for $8.5 billion in May 2011.

At the time of this writing, Microsoft is the market leader in the IBM PC compatible operating system market as well as the office software suite market, despite having lost a significant portion of the total operating system market to Google's Android operating system. In addition, the company develops a wide range of other consumer and enterprise software for desktops, laptops, tablets, gadgets, and servers, including Internet search (with Bing), the digital services market (through MSN), mixed reality (with HoloLens), cloud computing (with Azure), and software development (with Microsoft Visual Studio).