The Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index, a report of how progressive the organization deems company policies towards https://www.justbit-nl.nl/ LGBT employees, rated Microsoft as 87% from 2002 to 2004 and as 100% from 2005 to 2010 after it allowed gender expression. Bill Gates claims the cap on H1B visas makes it difficult to hire employees for the company, stating « I’d certainly get rid of the H1B cap » in 2005. MSDN also offers subscriptions for companies and individuals, and the more expensive subscriptions usually offer access to pre-release beta versions of Microsoft software.
- Since Satya Nadella took over as CEO in 2014, the company has changed focus towards cloud computing, as well as its acquisition of LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in 2016.
- December also saw the company discontinue the Microsoft Edge Legacy browser project in favor of the « New Edge » browser project, featuring a Chromium based backend.
- Concerns were raised about Microsoft’s licensing practices potentially locking customers into its services and its AI investments possibly sidestepping regulatory oversight.
- On November 10, 2020, Microsoft released the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S video game consoles.
- On July 2, 2025, Microsoft announced it would cut nearly 4% of its workforce, around 9,000 jobs, to control costs amid heavy AI infrastructure spending, while also restructuring management and streamlining operations.
- In April 2019, Microsoft became the third public U.S. company to be valued at over $1 trillion.
For Education
In May 2016, Microsoft announced another 1,850 job cuts mostly in its Nokia mobile phone division. In July 2015, Microsoft announced another 7,800 job cuts in the next several months. In October 2014, Microsoft revealed that it was almost done with eliminating 18,000 employees, which was its largest-ever layoff sweep. In September 2014, Microsoft laid off 2,100 people, including 747 people in the Seattle–Redmond area, where the company is headquartered. Another study, released by the Open Source Development Labs, claimed that the Microsoft studies were « simply outdated and one-sided » and their survey concluded that the TCO of Linux was lower due to Linux administrators managing more servers on average and other reasons. As such, it needs subsidiaries present in whatever national markets it chooses to harvest.
Microsoft plans to incorporate Ally.io into its Viva family of employee experience products. The acquisition positioned Microsoft to grow its presence in the market of providing online education to large numbers of people. In April 2021, Microsoft announced it would buy Nuance Communications for approximately $16 billion. On November 10, 2020, Microsoft released the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S video game consoles. On February 20, 2019, Microsoft said it would 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 the political space from hacking.
Sac à dos dinosaure
The company has a history of antitrust battles in the U.S. and Europe, with over €2 billion in EU fines previously imposed for similar abuses. Internal Revenue Service was alleging that the company owed the U.S. $28.9 billion in past taxes, plus penalties related to mis-allocation of corporate profits over a decade. In 2020, ProPublica reported that the company had diverted more than $39 billion in U.S. profits to Puerto Rico using a mechanism structured to make it seem as if the company was unprofitable on paper.
Unlock productivity, creativity, and generative AI for your organization.
The program authorizes the government to secretly access data of non-US citizens hosted by American companies without a warrant. In June 2024, Microsoft announced it would be laying off 1,000 employees from the company’s mixed reality and Azure cloud computing divisions. Its best-known software products are the Windows line of operating systems and the Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365 suite of productivity applications, which most notably include the Word word processor, Excel spreadsheet editor, and the PowerPoint presentation program. Often described as a Big Tech company, Microsoft is the largest software company by revenue, one of the most valuable public companies,a and one of the most valuable brands globally.
Find and share with friends…
Microsoft entered the operating system (OS) business in 1980 with its own version of Unix, licensed from AT&T Corporation a year before, called Xenix, but it was MS-DOS that solidified the company’s dominance. It has been criticized for its monopolistic practices, and the company’s software received criticism for problems with ease of use, robustness, and security. In April 2019, Microsoft became the third public U.S. company to be valued at over $1 trillion. Since Satya Nadella took over as CEO in 2014, the company has changed focus towards cloud computing, as well as its acquisition of LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in 2016.
- Another community site that provides daily videocasts and other services, On10.net, launched on March 3, 2006.
- In May 2018, Microsoft partnered with 17 American intelligence agencies to develop cloud computing products.
- In December 2022, Microsoft announced a new 10-year deal with the London Stock Exchange Group for products including Microsoft Azure; Microsoft acquired around 4% of LSEG as part of the deal.
- The group, accessed « a very small percentage » of Microsoft corporate email accounts, which also included members of its senior leadership team and employees in its cybersecurity and legal teams.
- Microsoft released its version of OS/2 to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) on April 2, 1987.
- The Microsoft 365 Copilot app empowers your employees to do their best work with Copilot in the apps they use daily.
Childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen sought to make a business using their skills in computer programming. More recently, it has been criticized for its role in providing services to Israel during the Gaza war. Under Nadella’s direction, the company has expanded its video gaming business to support the Xbox brand, establishing the Microsoft Gaming division in 2022 and the acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion in 2023. During the 41 years from 1980 to 2021 Microsoft released 9 versions of MS-DOS with a median frequency of 2 years, and 13 versions of Windows with a median frequency of 3 years. The Microsoft 365 Copilot app brings together your favorite apps in one intuitive platform that keeps your data secure with enterprise data protection. Your files and memories are secure in the cloud with 5GB of storage for free and 1TB with a paid Microsoft 365 subscription.
In May 2018, Microsoft partnered with 17 American intelligence agencies to develop cloud computing products. In April the company further expressed willingness to embrace open source initiatives by announcing Azure Sphere as its own derivative of the Linux operating system. In April 2018, Microsoft released the source code for Windows File Manager under the MIT License to celebrate the program’s 20th anniversary. On January 12, Microsoft released PowerShell Core 6.0 for the macOS and Linux operating systems.
In the same month, Microsoft announced the open source implementation of Windows Forms and the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) which will allow for further movement of the company toward the transparent release of key frameworks used in developing Windows desktop applications and software. On February 12, 2009, Microsoft announced its intent to open a chain of Microsoft-branded retail stores, and on October 22, 2009, the first retail Microsoft Store opened in Scottsdale, Arizona; the same day Windows 7 was officially released to the public. Azure Services Platform, the company’s entry into the cloud computing market for Windows, launched on October 27, 2008.
In November 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) launched an investigation into Microsoft, focusing on potential antitrust violations related to its cloud computing, AI, and cybersecurity businesses. On August 20, 20 Microsoft employees and their allies were arrested after refusing to disperse from a protest on Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington campus. After the disruptions at these events, Microsoft contacted the FBI in search of assistance in surveilling its pro-Palestinian employees and their allies. In May 2025, Microsoft issued an unsigned statement confirming that these services had been made available to Israel, while denying that these tools were employed during the massacre of the people of Gaza.
The initiative is meant to speed innovation through simple software changes in telecommunications networks, wireless networks, data centers, and other networking areas. As a result, in 2010 Microsoft revamped its aging flagship mobile operating system, Windows Mobile, replacing it with the new Windows Phone OS that was released in October that year. Gates retired from his role as Chief Software Architect on June 27, 2008, a decision announced in June 2006, while retaining other positions related to the company in addition to being an advisor for the company on key projects. Increasingly present in the hardware business following Xbox, Microsoft 2006 released the Zune series of digital media players, a successor of its previous software platform Portable Media Center. Other companies like Borland, WordPerfect, Novell, IBM and Lotus, being much slower to adapt to the new situation, would give Microsoft market dominance.
Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the rise of personal computers through software like Windows, and has since expanded to Internet services, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, video gaming, and other fields. Microsoft invited developers on Monday to start using Maia’s control software, but it’s not clear when users of the company’s Azure cloud service will be able to utilize servers running on the chip. According to the complaint and media reports, Microsoft’s cloud services may have been used to store or process surveillance-related data. The probe scrutinized Microsoft’s bundling of cloud services with products like Office and security tools, as well as its growing AI presence through its partnership with OpenAI. The employees, part of the group No Azure for Apartheid, sought to address the company’s involvement in the Israeli government’s use of its technology. Microsoft was the first company to participate in the PRISM surveillance program, according to leaked NSA documents obtained by The Guardian and The Washington Post in June 2013, and acknowledged by government officials following the leak.
The increased necessity for remote work and distance education drove demand for cloud computing and grew the company’s gaming sales. On September 21, 2020, Microsoft announced its intent to acquire video game company ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, for about $7.5 billion, with the deal expected to occur in the second half of 2021 fiscal year. In February 2019, hundreds of Microsoft employees protested the company’s war profiteering from a $480 million contract to develop virtual reality headsets for the United States Army. In December 2018, Microsoft announced Project Mu, an open source release of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) core used in Microsoft Surface and Hyper-V products.