Introduction
Microsoft Corporation is a multinational technology company with headquarters in Redmond, Washington, in the United States. It creates computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services. Microsoft net worth is $2135 Billion in 2022. The Windows range of operating systems, the Microsoft Office package, and the Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers are some of its best-known software offerings. The Xbox video gaming consoles and the Microsoft Surface range of touchscreen personal PCs are its two main hardware offerings. Microsoft, the largest software maker in the world by sales as of 2019, was ranked No. 21 in the 2020 Fortune 500 rankings of the biggest American firms. Along with Google, Amazon, Apple, and Meta, it is one of the Big Five American technological firms.
On April 4, 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen established Microsoft in order to create and market BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. In the middle of the 1980s, MS-DOS and then Windows propelled it to the top of the market for personal computer operating systems. Three people became billionaires thanks to Microsoft’s 1986 initial public offering (IPO) and subsequent increase in share price, while an estimated 12,000 Microsoft employees became millionaires. Since the 1990s, it has expanded its market beyond operating systems and acquired a number of businesses. Their greatest purchase to date was LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in December 2016, which was followed by Skype Technologies for $8.5 billion in May 2011.
Microsoft History
Bill Gates and Paul Allen were childhood friends who wanted to start a business leveraging their expertise in computer programming. They established Traf-O-Data in 1972, a company that sold a crude computer for monitoring and analyzing data on vehicle traffic. While Allen attended Washington State University to earn a degree in computer science before leaving to work at Honeywell, Gates enrolled at Harvard University. Allen proposed that they could create a BASIC interpreter for the device after reading about the Altair 8800 microprocessor from Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) in the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics. MITS called Gates and asked for a demonstration after Gates claimed to have a functional interpreter.
Gates created the interpreter while Allen worked on an Altair simulator, and they showed MITS in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in March 1975 how well it worked. Altair BASIC will be marketed by MITS, who agreed to distribute it. On April 4, 1975, Gates and Allen founded Microsoft. Gates served as CEO, and Allen offered the name “Micro-Soft,” which is short for microcomputer software. As a result of an arrangement the company made with ASCII Magazine in Japan in August 1977, ASCII Microsoft opened its first overseas office. In January 1979, Microsoft relocated its corporate headquarters to Bellevue, Washington.
| Name | Microsoft Corporation |
| Microsoft Net Worth 2022 | $2135 Billion |
| Net income: | $72.456 Billion |
| Revenue | $192 Billion |
| Total Assets | $344.60 Billion |
| PE Ratio | 27.68 |
| Founders: | Bill Gates, Paul Allen |
| CEO | Satya Nadella (4 Feb 2014–) |
| Headquarters: | Redmond, Washington, United States |
| Founded: | 4 April 1975 (47 years ago) |
| Number of employees | 221,000 (2022) |
| Subsidiaries: | GitHub, LinkedIn Corporation, MORE |
| Website: | https://www.microsoft.com/ |
Microsoft made its first into the operating system (OS) market in 1980 with its own Unix variant named Xenix, but MS-DOS cemented the company’s hegemony. In November 1980, IBM and Microsoft signed a contract for Microsoft to deliver a CP/M OS version for the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC). Despite having started working together on OS/2 with IBM the previous August, Microsoft debuted Windows as a graphical addition to MS-DOS on November 20, 1985. On February 26, 1986, Microsoft moved its headquarters from Bellevue to Redmond, Washington, and on March 13, it went public. As a result of the increase in stock price, Microsoft employees became an estimated four billionaires and 12,000 millionaires.
The Microsoft Office suite, which included standalone programs like Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, was first released by Microsoft in 1990. Microsoft released Windows 3.0 on May 22. With its improved protected mode functionality for the Intel 386 processor and optimized user interface visuals, Windows and Office quickly rose to prominence in their respective industries. Microsoft started to reevaluate its products and broaden its product line into computer networking and the World Wide Web after Bill Gates’s internal “Internet Tidal Wave letter” on May 26, 1995. Microsoft was the only significant, established corporation that moved quickly enough to be a part of the World Wide Web nearly from the beginning, with a few outliers of new businesses like Netscape. Microsoft net worth kept rising during this period.
| Year | Revenue (Millions of US $) |
| 2022 | $192,557 |
| 2021 | $168,088 |
| 2020 | $143,015 |
| 2019 | $125,843 |
| 2018 | $110,360 |
| 2017 | $96,571 |
| 2016 | $91,154 |
| 2015 | $93,580 |
| 2014 | $86,833 |
Windows 95, which supplied the Win32 API and had pre-emptive multitasking, a completely redesigned user interface with a creative start button, and 32-bit compatibility, was made available by the firm on August 24, 1995. MSN, an online service that was initially intended to compete with the Internet, and Internet Explorer (for OEMs) were included with Windows 95. On January 13, 2000, Bill Gates appointed Steve Ballmer, a longtime firm employee and a buddy from college, as the new CEO while establishing a new role for himself as Chief Software Architect. The following version of Windows, Vista, was released in January 2007 and concentrated on features, security, and a revamped user interface known as Aero.
On October 27, 2008, the business introduced Azure Services Platform, its first in the Windows cloud computing market. Microsoft had struggled to keep up with its competitors in supplying a cutting-edge smartphone operating system, slipping behind Apple and Google-sponsored Android in the United States as the smartphone market boomed in the late 2000s. As a result, Microsoft updated its outdated Windows Mobile flagship mobile operating system in 2010 and replaced it with the new Windows Phone OS, which was unveiled in October of that same year. On June 18, the Surface was unveiled, making it the first computer in business history whose hardware was produced by Microsoft. Microsoft purchased the social network Yammer on June 25 for US$1.2 billion. Successful acquisitions over the years have increased and benefited Microsoft net worth.
| Year | Net Income (Millions of US $) |
| 2022 | $72,456 |
| 2021 | $61,271 |
| 2020 | $44,281 |
| 2019 | $39,240 |
| 2018 | $16,571 |
| 2017 | $25,489 |
| 2016 | $20,539 |
| 2015 | $12,193 |
| 2014 | $22,074 |
Microsoft unveiled Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface on October 26, 2012. The debut of Windows Phone 8 came three days later. Satya Nadella, who had previously overseen Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise division, succeeded Steve Ballmer as CEO of Microsoft on February 4, 2014. Microsoft released its first interactive whiteboard, the Surface Hub, on January 21, 2015. Windows 10 was introduced on July 29, 2015, while Windows Server 2016, its server brother, was released in September 2016. When Microsoft merged its PC and Xbox businesses on March 1, 2016, Phil Spencer stated that future Microsoft gaming efforts would be concentrated on Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps. Cloud services have changed the old way of business and led to growth in Microsoft net worth.
Microsoft will release Windows 11 on June 24, 2021, via a live stream. After Microsoft declared that Windows 10 would be the final version of the operating system, due for release in the third quarter of 2021, the statement was met with confusion. The broader public received it on October 5, 2021. Activision Blizzard, an American video game developer, and the holding corporation was acquired by Microsoft in an all-cash deal valued at $68.7 billion on January 18, 2022. Microsoft net worth will grow further with the success of its services and subsidiaries.
Microsoft Logo
In 1987, Scott Baker’s so-called “Pac-Man Logo,” which he created, was adopted by Microsoft. In order to accentuate the “soft” portion of the word and express mobility and speed, Baker said that the new logo, which is in the Helvetica italic typeface, features a slash between the o and the s. When the corporation changed its former tagline of “Where do you want to travel today?” to the new one in 2002, it began utilizing the new logo in the United States and subsequently launched a television campaign. Microsoft revealed its newest slogan, “Be What’s Next,” at the 2010 MGX (Microsoft Global Exchange) conference. Additionally, they used the phrase “Making it all make sense.”
At the opening of its 23rd Microsoft store in Boston on August 23, 2012, Microsoft unveiled a new corporate logo, signaling a shift in the company’s emphasis from the classic style to the tile-centric modern interface, which it currently uses/will use on the Windows Phone platform, Xbox 360, Windows 8, and the upcoming Office Suites. In addition, there are four squares in the new design that bear the colors of the previous Windows logo and stand in for Microsoft’s four main products: Windows (blue), Office (red), Xbox (green), and Bing (yellow). The logo also recalls the first few seconds of a Windows 95 commercial.
Microsoft Softwares
Some Microsoft-developed software are-
- Microsoft Windows is an operating system, which means it is the foundational software that powers users’ computers and enables the operation of additional applications. Windows is used by most desktop and laptop computers, as well as tablet computers and smartphones. Windows 11 is the most recent iteration of Windows. Windows Server 2022 is the newest server version.
- An office suite is Microsoft Office. It enables users to create charts and graphs in Microsoft Excel, create presentations in Microsoft PowerPoint, and send emails in Microsoft Outlook on their PC. Microsoft Office includes a server technology called Microsoft SharePoint (2007, 2013). A tool for web development was the Expression series from Microsoft.
- A piece of Internet Explorer enables users to browse the web and download files from the Internet. It was succeeded by Microsoft Edge in 2015.
- Microsoft also creates more web applications. Many of these are referred to as Windows Live services, with Windows Live appearing before the service’s previous name, such as Windows Live Hotmail. The term “Windows Live” became less popular after 2012.
- An internet search engine for locating stuff online is Microsoft Bing. Google Maps displays maps.
Microsoft Services
Some services offered by Microsoft are –
- The website Outlook.com offers webmail. This service was originally introduced by Microsoft in 1996 under the name Hotmail. It is used to send and receive emails, keep track of contacts, manage an events and tasks calendar, and (such as phone numbers and email addresses).
- A file hosting service is OneDrive. It was established in 2007 under the name “SkyDrive.” A web server allows users to post files, and a variety of devices, including PCs and mobile devices, can download them.
- A VoIP and social networking platform, Skype. Microsoft did not develop it; rather, Skype SARL, which was eventually acquired by Microsoft, did. People can call other Skype users for free via the Internet and landlines for a fee using the Skype application or mobile app.
- A social networking site for those with professional occupations is called LinkedIn. Similar to Skype, it was developed by a different firm that Microsoft eventually acquired rather than Microsoft itself. People can submit details about their occupations and abilities on the website to assist employers in finding new hires.
- MSN is a website portal where users can read news and learn more about many subjects. It was founded in 1995, and its services were once produced under the moniker “Windows Live.” MSN Messenger, a former instant messaging service from MSN, is now a feature of Skype.
- A search engine like Google is called Bing. Live Search later replaced the former MSN moniker, but in 2009 it separated into a separate service. The various graphics that serve as the background of Bing’s home page are well-known.
Microsoft Hardware
Microsoft is primarily a software company, with a big presence in web services as well. However, it also makes and develops a variety of hardware products. They produce video game consoles Xbox, which have had many iterations till now. The company also makes PCs such as their Surface laptops, which now also include tablets. The company bought the mobile phone division of Nokia and made its own smartphones with its Windows Phone operating system. They also produced feature phones. Later Microsoft stopped making phones to keep its focus on cloud services but its other hardware products are still developed and maintained.
Microsoft Headquarters
One Microsoft Way in Redmond, Washington, is home to the corporate headquarters, also referred to as the Microsoft Redmond campus. Weeks before the business went public on March 13, 1986, Microsoft first relocated onto the campus’s grounds on February 26, 1986. Since its founding, the headquarters has undergone numerous additions. It is predicted to have between 30,000 and 40,000 workers and about 8 million square feet (750,000 square meters) of office space. In the Washington cities of Bellevue and Issaquah, there are more offices (90,000 employees worldwide). The business intends to make significant improvements to its Mountain View, California, campus. Since 1981, the corporation has called this facility home. The business purchased the 32-acre (13 ha) campus in 2016 with the intention of renovating and growing it by 25%.
Microsoft Controversies
Microsoft has come under fire for a number of its business methods and product lines. The company’s software’s usability, reliability, and security are frequently challenged. The employment of temporary employees, who are employed for years as “temporary” workers without medical coverage, as well as forced retention strategies, which threaten to sue employees who try to leave, has also drawn criticism. In the past, Microsoft has also been charged with overworking staff members, a practice that frequently causes burnout during the first few years of employment. The phrase “Velvet Sweatshop” is frequently used to describe the business; it first appeared in a Seattle Times article in 1989 and was later adopted by several Microsoft workers.
Microsoft Social Media Accounts
| 12.8m followers | Link | |
| 3.9m followers | Link | |
| 11.6m followers | Link | |
| Youtube | 826K subscribers | Link |
10 Facts about Microsoft
- The American multinational technology company Microsoft Corporation makes personal computers, consumer devices, and software for computers.
- It was founded on April 4, 1975, 47 years ago.
- Bill Gates and Paul Allen are the founding fathers of Microsoft.
- Microsoft employs more than 221,000 people around the world (2022).
- 8 companies are the subsidiaries of Microsoft, such as GitHub, LinkedIn, and more.
- Microsoft net worth is $2135 Billion in 2022.
- The company primarily makes software and web services, but also offers hardware products such as Laptops and Tablets.
- Microsoft developed smartphones but later stopped making them to focus on its other services.
- Satya Nadella is the CEO of Microsoft since 2014.
- Bill Gates still works in Microsoft, in the position of Technical Advisor.
Frequently Asked Questions about Microsoft
Microsoft is a popular software and services company. There are many questions asked about them. Here are some of the most important and frequently asked questions about Microsoft net worth, history, products, and much more.
What is Microsoft net worth?
Microsoft net worth is $2135 Billion in 2022.
When was Microsoft founded?
Microsoft was founded on April 4, 1975 (47 years ago).
Who founded Microsoft?
Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen.
How many people does Microsoft employ?
Microsoft employs more than 221k people around the world (2022).
Where is the headquarters of Microsoft located?
Microsoft headquarters is located at One Microsoft Way, Redmond, Washington, U.S.
Who is the CEO of Microsoft?
Satya Nadella has been the CEO of Microsoft since 2014.
Does Bill Gates still work for Microsoft?
Bill Gates still works for Microsoft in the position of Technical Advisor.
When did Microsoft acquire LinkedIn?
Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in December 2016 for $26.2 Billion.
What is Microsoft Word used for?
It is used to create documents, letters, reports, etc. of a professional caliber.
Is Microsoft Live chat free?
It costs nothing to use this service. Whether you need assistance with a current purchase or a previous one, get support and assistance.
Conclusion
Microsoft is a popular American multinational technology company that makes personal computers, consumer devices, and software for computers. It was founded on April 4, 1975, 47 years ago by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Bill Gates still works in Microsoft, in the position of Technical Advisor. Microsoft employs more than 221,000 people around the world (2022). Microsoft net worth is $2135 Billion in 2022.
Microsoft headquarters is located at One Microsoft Way, Redmond, Washington, U.S. 8 companies are the subsidiaries of Microsoft, such as GitHub, LinkedIn, and more. The company primarily makes software and web services, but also offers hardware products such as Laptops and Tablets. Microsoft developed smartphones but later stopped making them to focus on its other services. Satya Nadella is the CEO of Microsoft since 2014. Microsoft continues to develop software and services.
