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About Microsoft Microsoft Company makes software and devices
company was going to make “microcomputer software”
for people worldwide. In 2014 they had more than 120
(Becraft, 2014). Microsoft started like any other company,
thousand Employees worldwide. In 2014 the company
they were a small company that wanted to make it where
has made more than $22 billion (“Facts about,” 2014).
everyone can have a computer in their home.
The question is how did this company become so successful? Microsoft was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The Start of the Operating System Starting out the company was selling their modified versions of the Altair BASIC programming. People that had computers could buy it and put it in any computer that they wanted to. MITS was a company that was putting Microsoft in the way of doing that. MITS was trying to take ownership of the program Altair BASIC that Microsoft made.
The name was created by Paul to be Micro-Soft, but they took out the hyphen and he thought of it because their
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July 1980, after talking to IBM, Microsoft started to
to do these types of commands to work the computer so
make their new operating system called “Microsoft Disk
they had to come up with a better way of making an
Operating System (MS-DOS)”.
operating system work. In the new version of the operating system that was announced in 1983, the code name for the system was Interface Manager but in the end they just called it Windows. How they came out with the name Windows was where they described the interface of having computing windows in the system.
It was written by Tim Paterson; the Operating System had 16-bit, and was used in the first IBM PC the 5150 (Shustek, 2014). In 1981 the operating system was put into IBM PC and shipped off to customers. MS-DOS showed a new level of computer langue, the user used cryptic commands to tell the computer what it needs to do (“A history,” 2013). Not very many people knew how
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Microsoft moved their corporate campus to Redmond, Washington in 1986. That same year Microsoft sold its first shares publicly (Bishop, 2011). One year later Microsoft released Windows 2.0 that included some updated graphics along with more memory and icons for the desktop. In 1988 Microsoft became the largest personal computer software company in the world (“A history,” 2013). Windows 3.0 came out in 1988, which was the first Once Windows 1.0 came out in November of 1985 users
windows that actually had almost the same layout as the
were no longer typing commands to make the computer
version of the windows to come. Microsoft updated the
to work, the user was clicking their way through the
software with improving the performance, making better
screens to get what they wanted by using drop down
graphics with up to 16 different colors, and adding games
menus, icons, and dialogue boxes. There were many
to the software that included solitaire, hearts and
programs built into the OS including Notepad, Paint,
Minesweeper. Windows 3.0 had the most sells compared
Calculator, Windows writer, Calendar, a Clock and a
to any other operating systems yet. They sold over 10
game that was called Reversi (“A history,” 2013).
million copies in the first two years that it came out. (“A
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history,” 2013). Couple months later Microsoft released
The largest selling product in history came out in
its first ever Microsoft Office Suite, it included Microsoft
August 24, 1995 called the Windows 95. This was so big
Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.
for Microsoft that they spent $3 million just so they can license this song so they can have the opening chords of the Rolling Stones hit “Start Me Up” play on their commercial that shows off Windows 95 (Becraft, 2014).
Microsoft figured that people would want to buy the office suite because it was almost $250 less than buying all three of the applications separate (Johnston, 1990).
They ended up selling a record high of 7 million copies in the first 5 weeks. Windows 95 open the doors to new
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things in the computer world. The software had built in
When it came out they also decided to introduce Xbox
Internet support, enhanced multimedia, a Start menu
Live and took complete control of gamer’s life as one was
button, and dial-up connection for networks (“A history,”
able to send messages to friends and do much more.
2013).
Microsoft who created Xbox knew they were going to have a loss in revenue, in which they lost over four billion
More than just Operating Systems Microsoft decided to come out with something any gamer would love, a game console. They came out with the Xbox in 2001.
dollars. Xbox was a stepping stone for Microsoft for getting on the map in the video game console society (“The life”, n.d.). Windows 7 came out in 2009 with a lot of different cool features that include home groups, jump lists, snap, windows search bar, and was compatible with a touch screen computers. (“Explore Windows”, n.d.) People were saying that Windows 7 was by far the best operating system out there. Selling over 90 million license in the matter of five months. Peter Klein, Microsoft chief financial officer said that it was making history as the fastest selling OS (Paul, 2010). In the
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same year they came out with a new search engine because the one that they had was not good enough for users, Microsoft came out with their new search engine called Bing. They made major changes with updating the way it looks, the way the search engine processes, and when the mouse hovers over a result it has a pop-up window that shows more information about the page (Fried, 2009). Microsoft wanted a way to put their name out there in the smartphone world. They came out with software for smartphones called Windows Phone 7 in 2010. Microsoft
Some of the features that they put on the phone were
claimed that they could make a phone that was more
being able to access the users Xbox live account, have
user-friendly. The software was going to be put into nine
short cuts to your most favorite applications, and manage
different phones and sixty different phone companies in
music with Zune HD (Miles, 2010).
30 different countries (Weber, 2010).
In 2011 Skype put their company up for sale. Microsoft was looking into buying the company to use for
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Microsoft.
The design looks like the same design as the Windows 7 After a back and forth talk the company was bought out by Microsoft. $8.5 billion for the company, this helped Microsoft grow into the internet telephone service. Skype CEO Tony Bates who is now Microsoft Skype president,
phone. The features of the Windows 8 included a start screen that has tiles that have apps and files. The user can make it personal with the apps and background (“A history,” 2013).
Made a statement that with this new ownership they will be able to accelerate Skype’s users to 1 billion a day (Shankland, 2011).
Xbox One launched in November 2013, this was the biggest launch in history. They sold more than one million consoles worldwide within the first 24 hours that it
Microsoft came out with Windows 8, it was a total new design compared to windows 7.
came out (Xbox Wire Staff, 2013). In the new Xbox One it
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had better home screen than the previous Xbox and
The band is compatible with a smartphone or the
Xbox 360, used Skype to video chat people on Xbox, and
computer so the user can upload their workouts, keeps
comes on and goes off when the user tells it too.
track of heart rate, how far and how fast the user is
In 2014 Microsoft announced that they are going to make a fitness watch. It was called the Microsoft band; it keeps track of fitness activity.
running/walking, keeps track of the users sleeping, and is compatible with smartphones to receive notification of incoming calls and text messages (“Microsoft Band’’, n.d.).
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http://news.microsoft.com/facts-about-
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