In March 1992, Microsoft released Windows 3.1 along with its first promotional campaign on TV; the software sold over three million copies in its first two months on the market. Microsoft also marketed through an Apple dealer in West Palm Beach, Florida two products for the Radio-Shack TRS-80. On July 19, 2024, 8.5 million Windows computers around the world suffered crashes and were unable to restart, resulting from a faulty update that American cybersecurity company CrowdStrike released for its Falcon Sensor security software. Meanwhile, that month, the company announced a subscription offering of artificial intelligence for small businesses via Copilot Pro. Microsoft also announced a new multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment deal with OpenAI. On January 18, 2022, Microsoft announced the acquisition of American video game developer and holding company Activision Blizzard in an all-cash deal worth $68.7 billion.
2011: Microsoft Azure, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Microsoft Stores
On August 24, 1995, Microsoft released Windows 95, a new version of the company’s flagship operating system which featured a completely new user interface, including a novel start button; more than a million copies were sold in the first four days after its release. The interface was discontinued in 1996 due to poor sales; Bill Gates later attributed its failure to hardware requirements that were too high for typical computers, and is widely regarded as one of Microsoft’s most unsuccessful products. The company released Microsoft Bob, a graphical user interface designed for novice computer users, in March 1995. Microsoft also released Windows for Workgroups 3.11, a new version of the consumer line of Windows, and Windows NT 3.1, a server-based operating system with a similar user interface to consumer versions of the operating system, but with an entirely different kernel. In October, Windows for Workgroups 3.1 was released with integrated networking abilities such as peer-to-peer file and printing sharing.
Microsoft has not released statements regarding Activision’s recent legal controversies regarding employee abuse, but reports have alleged that Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, a major target of the controversy, will leave the company after the acquisition is finalized. Microsoft plans to incorporate Ally.io into its Viva family of employee experience products. On October 7, Microsoft acquired Ally.io, a software service that measures companies’ progress against OKRs. The acquisition positioned Microsoft to grow its presence in the market of providing an online education to large numbers of people. In early September 2021, it was announced that the company had acquired Takelessons, an online platform which connects students and tutors in numerous subjects. On November 10, 2020, Microsoft released the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S video game consoles.
Get the Microsoft 365 Copilot mobile app
- On the advertisement side of the deal, Microsoft’s Atlas ad-serving division became the exclusive provider of previously unsold advertising inventory on Viacom owned web sites.
- In March 1992, Microsoft released Windows 3.1 along with its first promotional campaign on TV; the software sold over three million copies in its first two months on the market.
- While Microsoft largely failed to participate in the rise of the Internet in the early 1990s, some of the key technologies in which the company had invested to enter the Internet market started to pay off by the mid-90s.
- The interface was discontinued in 1996 due to poor sales; Bill Gates later attributed its failure to hardware requirements that were too high for typical computers, and is widely regarded as one of Microsoft’s most unsuccessful products.
- When Microsoft launched several versions of Microsoft Windows in the 1990s, they had captured over 90% market share of the world’s personal computers.
Microsoft also released the Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro joystick in an attempt to further expand its profile in the computer hardware market. As part of its strategy to broaden its business, Microsoft released Microsoft Encarta on March 22, 1993, the first encyclopedia designed to run on a computer. In November, Microsoft released the first version of their popular database software Microsoft Access. Eventually, Microsoft Office became the dominant business suite, with a market share far exceeding that of its competitors. By then the company was the world’s largest producer of software for personal computers—ahead of former leader Lotus—and published the three most-popular Macintosh business applications.
present: Acquisitions, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows 11
During the transition from MS-DOS to Windows, the success of Microsoft Office allowed the company to gain ground on application-software competitors, such as WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3. In an internal memo to Microsoft employees on May 16, 1991, Bill Gates announced that the OS/2 partnership was over, and that Microsoft would henceforth focus its platform efforts on Windows and the Windows NT kernel. Unlike the model of Microsoft Works, Microsoft Office was a bundle of separate office productivity applications, such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and so forth. On August 8, 1989, Microsoft introduced its most successful office product, Microsoft Office. Microsoft Works would later be sold with other Microsoft products including Microsoft Word and Microsoft Bookshelf, a reference collection introduced in 1987 that was the company’s first CD-ROM product. Microsoft Works, an integrated office program which combined features typically found in a word processor, spreadsheet, database and other office applications, saw its first release as an application for the Apple Macintosh towards the end of 1986.
InfoWorld stated in 1984 that Microsoft, with $55 million (~$140 million in 2024) in 1983 sales, When the IBM PC debuted, Microsoft was the only company that offered operating system, programming language, and application software for the new computer. Due to potential copyright infringement problems with CP/M, IBM marketed both CP/M and PC DOS for US$240 and US$40, respectively, with PC DOS eventually becoming the standard because of its lower price. For this deal, Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called 86-DOS from Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products for less than US$100,000, which IBM renamed to IBM PC DOS. IBM first approached Gates and Allen about Microsoft’s upcoming IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC) in July 1980, shortly after Gates’s mother began working on United Way’s executive board with IBM CEO John Opel. By the mid-1980s Microsoft had gotten out of the Unix business, except for its ownership stake in SCO.
- Microsoft released Windows XP and Office XP in 2001, a version that aimed to encompass the features of both its business and home product lines.
- In April 2021, Microsoft announced it would buy Nuance Communications for approximately $16 billion (~$18.2 billion in 2024).
- The first operating system publicly released by the company was a variant of Unix announced on August 25, 1980.
- On March 26, 2020, Microsoft announced it was acquiring Affirmed Networks for about $1.35 billion (~$1.61 billion in 2024).
- However, Microsoft encountered more turmoil in March 2004 when antitrust legal action would be brought against it by the European Union for allegedly abusing its market dominance (see Microsoft Corp. v. Commission).
Microsoft released Windows XP and Office XP in 2001, a version that aimed to encompass the features of both its business and home product lines. Microsoft, in 2000, released new products for all three lines of the company’s flagship operating system, and saw the beginning of the end of one of its most prominent legal cases. In 1997, Internet Explorer 4.0 was released, marking the beginning of the takeover of the browser market from rival Netscape, and by agreement with Apple, Internet Explorer was bundled with the Apple Macintosh operating system as well as with Windows. The company also released the Microsoft SQL Server 6.5, which had built-in support for internet applications.
More apps in one place
On February 16, 1986, Microsoft relocated their headquarters to a corporate office campus in Redmond, Washington. Softletter estimated that in 1986 the “Big Three” of Lotus (9%), Microsoft (8%, more than $250 million), and Ashton-Tate (6%) together had 23% of total revenue of the chicken road games top 100 microcomputer software companies. By then Forrester Research considered Microsoft, Ashton-Tate, Lotus Development, and Borland the “Big Four” of personal computer software. OS/2 was marketed in connection with a new hardware design proprietary to IBM, the PS/2. Ireland became home to one of Microsoft’s international production facilities in 1985, and on November 20 Microsoft released its first retail version of Microsoft Windows (Windows 1.0), originally a graphical extension for its MS-DOS operating system.
2020: Windows 10, Windows 10 Mobile, Microsoft Edge and HoloLens
On May 10, 2011, the company acquired Skype Technologies for US$8.5 billion (~$11.7 billion in 2024). On April 12, 2010, Microsoft launched their Kin phone line, a result of their acquisition of Danger Incorporated in 2008. On June 26, 2009, Microsoft started taking pre-orders at a discounted price for Windows 7 which was launched on October 22, 2009. During the show, Ballmer announced the first public Beta Test of Windows 7 for partners and developers on January 8, but also for the general public two days later. In 2008, Microsoft wanted to purchase Yahoo (first completely, later partially) in order to strengthen its position on the search engine market vis-à-vis Google. On the advertisement side of the deal, Microsoft’s Atlas ad-serving division became the exclusive provider of previously unsold advertising inventory on Viacom owned web sites.
On March 26, 2020, Microsoft announced it was acquiring Affirmed Networks for about $1.35 billion (~$1.61 billion in 2024). In December 2018, Microsoft announced Project Mu, an open source release of the UEFI core used in Microsoft Surface and Hyper-V products. On October 8, 2017, Joe Belfiore announced that work on Windows 10 Mobile was drawing to a close due to lack of market penetration and resultant lack of interest from app developers.
On September 22, 2020, Microsoft announced that it had an exclusive license to use OpenAI’s GPT-3 artificial intelligence language generator. On July 22, 2020, Microsoft announced plans to close its Mixer service, planning to move existing partners to Facebook Gaming. On February 20, 2019, Microsoft Corp said it will offer its cyber security service AccountGuard to 12 new markets in Europe including Germany, France and Spain, to close security gaps and protect customers in political space from hacking. In January 2019, Microsoft announced that support for Windows 10 Mobile would end on December 10, 2019, and that Windows 10 Mobile users should migrate to iOS or Android phones. December also saw the company rebuilding Microsoft Edge as a Chromium-based browser; it was publicly released on January 15, 2020.
On June 8, 2017, Microsoft acquired Hexadite, an Israeli security firm, for $100 million (~$125 million in 2024). Microsoft will launch a preview of Intune for Education “in the coming weeks”, with general availability scheduled for spring 2017, priced at $30 (~$38.00 in 2024) per device, or through volume licensing agreements. The server sibling to Windows 10, Windows Server 2016, was released in September 2016. In June 2016, Microsoft announced a project named Microsoft Azure Information Protection. On March 1, 2016, Microsoft announced the merge of its PC and Xbox divisions, with Phil Spencer announcing that Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps would be the focus for Microsoft’s gaming in the future. The successor to Windows Phone 8.1, Windows 10 Mobile, was released November 20, 2015.
The first operating system publicly released by the company was a variant of Unix announced on August 25, 1980. It was an immediate success; 5,000 cards, a large number given the microcomputer market at the time, were purchased in the initial three months at $349 (~$1,112 in 2024) each and it was Microsoft’s number one revenue source in 1980. It develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices. When Microsoft launched several versions of Microsoft Windows in the 1990s, they had captured over 90% market share of the world’s personal computers. Within hours, CrowdStrike released a patch for the faulty update that prevented future crashes, but affected computers had to be fixed manually, so problems persisted for some time. In January 2023, CEO Satya Nadella announced Microsoft would lay off some 10,000 employees.
By posting to this forum you agree to abide by the rules. Before you start posting please read the forum rules. In December 2022, Microsoft announced a new 10-year deal with the London Stock Exchange for products including Microsoft Azure; Microsoft acquired ~4% of the latter company as part of the deal. In October 2021, Microsoft announced that it began rolling out end-to-end encryption (E2EE) support for Microsoft Teams calls in order to secure business communication while using video conferencing software. On February 17, Microsoft released an update to its business line of software in Windows 2000.
The company’s first international office was founded on November 1, 1978, in Japan, entitled “ASCII Microsoft” (now called “Microsoft Japan”), and on November 29, 1979, the term, “Microsoft” was first used by Bill Gates. Allen came up with the original name of Micro-Soft, a portmanteau of microcomputer and software. As of June 30, 2015, Microsoft has a global annual revenue of US$86.83 billion (~$112 billion in 2024) and 128,076 employees worldwide.
In an attempt to extend its reach in the consumer market, the company acquired WebTV, which enabled consumers to access the Web from their televisions. Microsoft also launched Slate, an online magazine edited by Michael Kinsley, which offered political and social commentary along with the cartoon Doonesbury. The station was launched on July 15, 1996, to compete with similar news outlets such as CNN. The company continued to branch out into new markets in 1996, starting with a joint venture with NBC to create a new 24-hour cable news television station, MSNBC. On August 24, 1995, it launched a major online service, MSN (Microsoft Network), as a direct competitor to AOL.
In 1980, Microsoft formed a partnership with IBM to bundle Microsoft’s operating system with IBM computers; with that deal, IBM paid Microsoft a royalty for every sale.
Windows CE 2.0, the handheld version of Windows, was released this year, including a host of bug fixes and new features designed to make it more appealing to corporate customers. In November 1996, Microsoft Office 97 was released, which is the first version to include Office Assistant. While Microsoft largely failed to participate in the rise of the Internet in the early 1990s, some of the key technologies in which the company had invested to enter the Internet market started to pay off by the mid-90s. Microsoft entered the personal digital assistant (PDA) market in November with Windows CE 1.0, a new built-from-scratch version of their flagship operating system, designed to run on low-memory, low-performance machines, such as handhelds and other small computers.