Microsoft - Extensions & Converters

Information about Microsoft

Type:	Public
Founded:	Albuquerque, New Mexico (1975)
Location:	Redmond, Washington, USA
Revenue:	$39.8 billion USD (2005)
Employees:	59,947 (2005)
Website:	www.microsoft.com
NASDAQ:	MSFT

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) is the world's largest software company, with global annual sales in the tens of billions of US dollars and nearly 60,000 employees in more than 90 countries. The company's headquarters are in Redmond, Washington, USA. Microsoft develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices. Its most popular products are the Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software, each of which has achieved near ubiquity in the desktop computer market. Microsoft has footholds in other markets, with assets such as the MSNBC cable television network, the MSN Internet portal, and the Microsoft Encarta computer encyclopedia. The company also markets home entertainment products, such as the Xbox and WebTV.

"Micro-soft" (short for microcomputer software) was founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. After the market saw a flood of IBM PC clones in the mid-1980s, Microsoft used its new position, which it gained in part due to a contract from IBM, to dominate the home computer operating system market with its MS-DOS operating system. The company later released an initial product offering in the stock market, which netted several of its employees millions of dollars due to the ensuing rise of the stock price. The price of the stock continued its rise steadily into the early 2000s. In Microsoft Windows, the company was selling what would become the most widely used operating system in the world, which was originally an add-on for their DOS operating system; Microsoft continued to push into multiple markets, such as computer hardware and television. In addition, Microsoft has historically given customer support over Usenet newsgroups and the world wide web, and awards Microsoft MVP status to volunteers who are deemed helpful in assisting the company's customers.

With what is generally described as a developer-centric business culture, Microsoft has become widely known for some of its internal codes of conduct for its employees. One example is the "eat your own dogfood" mantra, which describes the practice of using pre-release products inside the company to test them in an environment geared towards the real world. Microsoft has also become notorious for its business practices – the U.S. Justice Department, among others, has sued Microsoft for antitrust violations and software bundling. In addition, Microsoft has been criticized for the security and ease-of-use of its software. Despite this, Microsoft has won several awards, such as the "1993 Most Innovative Company Operating in the U.S." by Fortune Magazine. The Company is on the Fortune 500 list of companies as of as of 2005.

Microsoft - Extensions & Converters