History of Microsoft (1975-present) by year
Let’s take a look at one of the best and
largest Software Company Microsoft
from its start to the present.
Read the full post to know the history of
Microsoft in brief.
Founded: 1975
Founded by: Bill Gates, Paul Allen
Headquarters: One Microsoft Way, Redmond,
Washington, US
Key people: John W. Thompson (chairman),
Satya Nadella (CEO),
Brad
Smith (president), Bill Gates (technical advisor).
Key
Products: Windows, Office, Servers, Skype, Visual Studio, Dynamics, Xbox,
Surface, Mobile.
Key Services: Azure, Bing, LinkedIn, Yammer,
MSDN, Office365, OneDrive, Outlook.com, GitHub, TechNet, Pay, Microsoft Store,
Windows Update, Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Live.
In
1980, Microsoft entered the operating system (OS) business with its version of
Unix called Xenix. Microsoft went for a deal with IBM and purchased MS-DOS.
In 1983, the company expanded into new
markets with the release of the Microsoft Mouse named Microsoft Press. And MS word was
first released this year.
In 1985, Windows 1.0 is released. Microsoft supported Windows 1.0
for 16 years, until December 31, 2001.
In 1987, Windows 2.0 was released on December 9 that was 16-bit
Microsoft Windows GUI-based operating environment.
In 1989, Microsoft office was released.
In 1990, Windows 3.0 was released.
In 1995, Windows 95 was released and internet explorer was also
released.
In 1996, MSNBC was launched.
In1998, Windows 98 was released.
In 2000, Microsoft lost its antitrust
battle with the US Government and they were fined US$613 million.
In 2001, Microsoft releases Windows XP and Office XP. Xbox was
also released later that year.
In
2005, Xbox 360 was released..
In 2007, Windows Vista and Office 2007 was released.
In
2008, they were fined again of US$1.4
billion by the European Union. That year they released Windows Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008.
In 2009, Windows 7 was released.
In 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype Technologies for US$8.5 billion.
In 2012, Microsoft did a lot. Microsoft
released Windows 8, Microsoft
Surface, then purchased Yammer for
US$1.2 billion and introduced Windows Phone. And also launched their webmail service Outlook to
compete with Gmail. Also they released Windows server 2012.
In
2013, Microsoft suffered a huge loss of US$32 billion. But later agreed to buy Nokia's mobile unit for US$7 billion that
year and then released Xbox one.
In 2014, Microsoft purchased Mojang (Minecraft) for US$2.4
billion. Thompson became the
second chairman in Microsoft's history.
In 2015,
Windows 10 was released. They lost
$7.6 billion in mobile-phone business and fired 7,800 employees.
In 2016, Microsoft released Windows server 2016 purchased LinkedIn for US$26.2 billion.
In
2017, Microsoft acquired Israeli
security firm Hexadite for $100 million.
In 2018, Microsoft purchased GitHub for US$7.5
billion.
So this is the history of Microsoft in short.
From starting the company in a garage to become the world’s largest Software Company, the journey of
Microsoft and Bill gates is awesome.
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