Microsoft
Microsoft (/ˈmaɪkroʊsɒft/ MY-kroh-soft) is an American multinational technology company with headquarters in Redmond, Washington. It develops, manufactures, licenses, supports, and sells computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services. Its best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft Office suite, and the Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. Microsoft ranked No. 21 in the 2020 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue;[3] it was the world's largest software maker by revenue as of 2016.[4] It is considered one of the Big Five companies in the U.S. information technology industry, along with Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook.[1]
Microsoft (the word being a portmanteau of "microcomputer software"[5]) was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. It rose to dominate the personal computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by Microsoft Windows. The company's 1986 initial public offering (IPO), and subsequent rise in its share price, created three billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires among Microsoft employees. Since the 1990s, it has increasingly diversified from the operating system market and has made a number of corporate acquisitions, their largest being the acquisition of LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in December 2016,[6] followed by their acquisition of Skype Technologies for $8.5 billion in May 2011.[7]
Steve Ballmer replaced Gates as CEO in 2000, and later envisioned a "devices and services" strategy.[9] This unfolded with Microsoft acquiring Danger Inc. in 2008,[10] entering the personal computer production market for the first time in June 2012 with the launch of the Microsoft Surface line of tablet computers, and later forming Microsoft Mobile through the acquisition of Nokia's devices and services division. Since Satya Nadella took over as CEO in 2014, the company has scaled back on hardware and has instead focused on cloud computing, a move that helped the company's shares reach its highest value since December 1999.[11][12]
Microsoft is committed to take action to help address racial injustice and inequity, and unequivocally believe that Black lives matter. June 23, 2020, Microsoft made commitments to address racial injustice and inequity for the Black and African American community in the United States. "We will additionally take important steps to address the needs of other communities, including the Hispanic and Latinx community, across the company in the next five years.", said Satya Nadella CEO of Microsoft in an email to Microsoft's employees.[2]
https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2020/06/05/change-in-ourselves-helps-drive-change-in-the-world/
https://fortune.com/2020/10/21/microsoft-minimal-increases-black-latino-diversity/
References
- ↑ Microsoft. Retrieved January 17, 2021.
- ↑ Microsoft Corporate Blogs. Addressing racial injustice. Microsoft Blog. 23 June 2020. Retrieved January 17, 2021.


