The Business Model of Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is a multinational technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington, that specializes in the development and sale of computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services. The Microsoft Windows operating system family, the Microsoft Office suite, and the Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers among the company's most well-known software products. The Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface range of touchscreen personal computers are the company's major hardware offerings. On April 4, 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen launched Microsoft (the name is a portmanteau of "microcomputer software") to create and market BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. With MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, it dominated the personal computer operating system industry, followed by Microsoft Windows. Microsoft workers became billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires as a result of the company's 1986 initial public offering (IPO) and subsequent rise in share price. Along with Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook, it is considered one of the Big Five corporations in the United States' information technology industry.