The New Logo
The Former Logo (pre-October 2012)
Microsoft is a company that made Windows and X-box 360.
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington that develops, manufactures, licenses and supports a wide range of products and services related to computing. The company was founded by Bill Gates andPaul Allen on April 4, 1975. Microsoft is the world's largest software maker measured by revenues.[3] It is also one of the world's most valuable companies.[4]
Microsoft was established to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. It rose to dominate the personal computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems. The company's 1986initial public offering, and subsequent rise in its share price, created an estimated three billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees. Since the 1990s, it has increasingly diversified from the operating system market and has made a number of corporate acquisitions. In May 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype Technologies for $8.5 billion in its largest acquisition to date.[5]
As of 2012, Microsoft is market dominant in both the PC operating system and office suitemarkets (the latter with Microsoft Office). The company also produces a wide range of other software for desktops and servers, and is active in areas including internet search(with Bing), the video game industry (with the Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles), the digital services market (through MSN), and mobile phones (via the Windows Phone OS). In June 2012, Microsoft announced that it would be entering the PC vendor market for the first time, with the launch of the Microsoft Surface tablet computer.