Microsoft Corporation
Company: Microsoft Corporation
Founders: Bill Gates and Paul Allen
Industry: Computer software; Research and Development; Video Games; Computer Hardware
History:
Microsoft Corporation is a global computer technology corporation that is engaged in the manufacture, development, licensing, and support of a multitude of software products for computing devices.
Microsoft currently has 79,000 employees worldwide and its net revenue was worth $51.12 billion as of June 2007. With its headquarters in Washington, Microsoft has subsidiary offices in 103 countries and regions all over the world. Its operations are divided into three businesses, namely: Microsoft Platforms & Services Division; Microsoft Entertainment & Devices Division; and Microsoft Business Division.
In 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico; its office then moved to Bellevue, Washington in 1979.
In 1981, it developed its highly popular operating system, Microsoft’s Disk Operating System, which Columbia Data Products used as their PC clones’ OS.
In 1986, they moved their office to Redmond, Washington and in the same year the company went public.
In 1989, Microsoft launched its earliest version Office suite of productivity applications.
In 1990, the company launched MS Windows 3.0 and sold more than 100,000 copies of the software in just two weeks.
In 1991, Microsoft Research was established for the research of computer science studies. In the same year Microsoft Visual Basic was also created, which was a development product for individuals and corporations.
In 1995, Windows 95 was introduced, which sold one million copies in the first four days following its release.
Windows 98 and Windows 2000 were launched in 1998 and 2000 respectively. The latter provided a plethora of better features.
In 2001, Office XP and Windows XP were launched.
In 2002, Microsoft and its partners launched tablet PC.
In 2006, Microsoft adCenter was introduced, presenting pay-per-click advertisements.
In 2007, Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office System were introduced to consumers worldwide. Also in the same year, Microsoft signed a five-year contract with Viacom to apply content sharing and advertisement.
Leadership:
Executive Team
· Bill Gates, Chairman
· Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive Officer
· Craig Mundie, Senior VP& Chief Technical Officer, Advanced Strategies & Policy
· David Vaskevitch, Senior VP & Chief Technical Officer, Platform Technology & Strategy
· Jon DeVaan, Senior VP, Engineering Strategy
· Rick Rashid, Senior VP, Microsoft Research
· David Cole, Senior VP, MSN & Personal Services Division
· Hank Vigil, Vice President, Consumer Strategy & Partnerships
· Jeff Raikes, Group VP, Productivity & Business Services Group
· Jim Allchin, Group VP, Platforms Group
· Robert Bach, Senior VP, Home & Entertainment Division
· Kevin Johnson, Group VP, Worldwide Sales, Marketing, & Services
· Brad Smith, Senior VP, General Counsel & Secretary
· John Connors, Senior VP & Chief Financial Officer
· Ken DiPietro, Vice President, Human Resources
· Mich Matthews, Vice President, Corporate Marketing Group
· Mitra Azizirad, Director, Business Strategy
Board of Directors
Quotes:
Steve Ballmer: Microsoft 2008 MVP Summit
April 17, 2008
“We sit here 28 years later, there’s still not a computer on every desk, there’s still not a computer in every home, and yet really our strategy and our mission have expanded. The heart and soul of what a computer brings is empowerment, it is enablement. And that’s why we talk about the mission of the company is enabling people to realize their full potential. That’s what technology lets us do.”
Bill Gates: SharePoint Conference 2008
March 3, 2008
“To me, it’s the next evolution in the vision that we’ve started with Microsoft Office. And we’re constantly getting more ambitious in what we do with software. We’re constantly able to say that people can do their jobs far more effectively because of the empowerment of software.”
