on microsoft s main campus in redmond washington type public traded as nasdaq msft dow jones industrial average component nasdaq 100 component s & p 500 component industry computer software computer hardware consumer electronics digital distribution founded april 4 1975 ; 41 years ago 1975 04 04 albuquerque new mexico united states founders bill gates paul allen headquarters microsoft redmond campus redmond washington united states area served worldwide key people john w. thompson chairman satya nadella ceo bill gates founder & technology advisor brad smith president 1 products windows office servers skype visual studio dynamics azure xbox surface mobile more ... services msn bing onedrive msdn outlook.com technet xbox live revenue us 85.32 billion 2016 2 operating income us 19.86 billion 2016 2 net income us 16.79 billion 2016 2 total assets us 193.69 billion 2016 2 total equity us 71.99 billion 2016 2 owner bill gates 3 % 3 number of employees 114 000 june 30 2016 4 subsidiaries list of microsoft subsidiaries website www.microsoft.com footnotes references 5 microsoft corporation ma kr s ft ro s ft 6 7 commonly referred to as microsoft or ms is an american multinational technology company headquartered in redmond washington that develops manufactures licenses supports and sells computer software consumer electronics and personal computers and services . its best known software products are the microsoft windows line of operating systems microsoft office office suite and internet explorer and edge web browsers . its flagship hardware products are the xbox video game consoles and the microsoft surface tablet lineup . as of 2011 it was the world s largest software maker by revenue 8 and one of the world s most valuable companies . 9 microsoft was founded by paul allen and bill gates on april 4 1975 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 microsoft windows . the company s 1986 initial public offering ipo and subsequent rise in its share price created three billionaires and an estimated 12 000 millionaires among 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 up to 10 june 2016 announced plan to acquire linkedin for 26.2 billion . 11 12 as of 2015 update microsoft is market dominant in the ibm pc compatible operating system market and the office software suite market although it has lost the majority of the overall operating system market to android . 13 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 xbox 360 and xbox one consoles the digital services market through msn and mobile phones via the operating systems of nokia s former phones 14 and windows phone os . in june 2012 microsoft entered the personal computer production market for the first time with the launch of the microsoft surface a line of tablet computers . with the acquisition of nokia s devices and services division to form microsoft mobile the company re entered the smartphone hardware market after its previous attempt microsoft kin which resulted from their acquisition of danger inc. 15 the word microsoft is a portmanteau of microcomputer and software . 16 contents 1 history 1.1 1972 84 founding and company beginnings 1.2 1984 94 windows and office 1.3 1995 2007 internet and the 32 bit era 1.4 2007 11 windows vista mobile and windows 7 1.5 2011 14 rebranding windows 8 surface and nokia devices 1.6 2014 present windows 10 minecraft hololens 1.6.1 ceo succession 1.6.2 nokia 1.6.3 mojang minecraft 1.6.4 surface hub 1.6.5 windows 10 1.6.6 windows server 2016 1.6.7 mobile phone sales 1.6.8 merger of pc and xbox divisions 1.6.9 azure information protection 1.6.10 other 2 businesses 2.1 windows division server and tools online services division 2.2 business division 2.3 entertainment and devices division 2.4 future decoded 3 corporate affairs 3.1 board of directors 3.2 financial 3.3 marketing 3.4 layoffs 3.5 united states government 4 corporate identity 4.1 corporate culture 4.2 environment 4.3 headquarters 4.4 flagship stores 4.5 logo 4.6 sponsorship 5 see also 6 references 7 external links history main articles history of microsoft history of microsoft windows and timeline of microsoft 1972 84 founding and company beginnings paul allen l. and bill gates r. on october 19 1981 in a sea of pcs after signing a pivotal contract . ibm called microsoft in july 1980 inquiring about programming languages for its upcoming pc line ; 17 228 after failed negotiations with another company ibm gave microsoft a contract to develop the os for the new line of pcs . 18 paul allen and bill gates childhood friends with a passion for computer programming sought to make a successful business utilizing their shared skills . 19 in 1972 they founded their first company named traf o data which offered a rudimentary computer that tracked and analyzed automobile traffic data . allen went on to pursue a degree in computer science at washington state university later dropping out of school to work at honeywell . gates began studies at harvard . 20 the january 1975 issue of popular electronics which allen bought at out of town news featured micro instrumentation and telemetry systems s mits altair 8800 microcomputer . 21 allen suggested that they could program a basic interpreter for the device ; after a call from gates claiming to have a working interpreter mits requested a demonstration . since they didn t actually have one allen worked on a simulator for the altair while gates developed the interpreter . although they developed the interpreter on a simulator and not the actual device the interpreter worked flawlessly when they demonstrated the interpreter to mits in albuquerque new mexico in march 1975 ; mits agreed to distribute it marketing it as altair basic . 17 108 112 114 they officially established microsoft on april 4 1975 with gates as the ceo . 22 allen came up with the original name of micro soft as recounted in a 1995 fortune magazine article . 23 24 in august 1977 the company formed an agreement with ascii magazine in japan resulting in its first international office ascii microsoft . 25 the company moved to a new home in bellevue washington in january 1979 . 22 microsoft entered the os business in 1980 with its own version of unix called xenix . 26 however it was ms dos that solidified the company s dominance . after negotiations with digital research failed ibm awarded a contract to microsoft in november 1980 to provide a version of the cp m os which was set to be used in the upcoming ibm personal computer ibm pc . 27 for this deal microsoft purchased a cp m clone called 86 dos from seattle computer products branding it as ms dos which ibm rebranded to pc dos . following the release of the ibm pc in august 1981 microsoft retained ownership of ms dos . since ibm copyrighted the ibm pc bios other companies had to reverse engineer it in order for non ibm hardware to run as ibm pc compatibles but no such restriction applied to the operating systems . due to various factors such as ms dos s available software selection microsoft eventually became the leading pc operating systems vendor . 18 28 210 the company expanded into new markets with the release of the microsoft mouse in 1983 as well as with a publishing division named microsoft press . 17 232 paul allen resigned from microsoft in 1983 after developing hodgkin s disease . 1984 94 windows and office windows 1.0 was released on november 20 1985 as the first version of the microsoft windows line . timeline of windows while jointly developing a new os with ibm in 1984 os 2 microsoft released microsoft windows a graphical extension for ms dos on november 20 1985 . 17 242 243 246 microsoft moved its headquarters to redmond on february 26 1986 and on march 13 the company went public ; 29 the ensuing rise in the stock would make an estimated four billionaires and 12 000 millionaires from microsoft employees . 30 due to the partnership with ibm in 1990 the federal trade commission set its eye on microsoft for possible collusion ; it marked the beginning of over a decade of legal clashes with the u.s. government . 31 microsoft released its version of os 2 to original equipment manufacturers oems on april 2 1987 ; 17 243 244 meanwhile the company was at work on a 32 bit os microsoft windows nt using ideas from os 2 ; it shipped on july 21 1993 with a new modular kernel and the win32 application programming interface api making porting from 16 bit ms dos based windows easier . once microsoft informed ibm of nt the os 2 partnership deteriorated . 32 in 1990 microsoft introduced its office suite microsoft office . the software bundled separate office productivity applications such as microsoft word and microsoft excel . 17 301 on may 22 microsoft launched windows 3.0 with a streamlined user interface graphics and improved protected mode capability for the intel 386 processor . 33 both office and windows became dominant in their respective areas . 34 35 novell a word competitor from 1984 1986 filed a lawsuit years later claiming that microsoft left part of its apis undocumented in order to gain a competitive advantage . 36 on july 27 1994 the u.s. department of justice antitrust division filed a competitive impact statement that said in part beginning in 1988 and continuing until july 15 1994 microsoft induced many oems to execute anti competitive per processor licenses . under a per processor license an oem pays microsoft a royalty for each computer it sells containing a particular microprocessor whether the oem sells the computer with a microsoft operating system or a non microsoft operating system . in effect the royalty payment to microsoft when no microsoft product is being used acts as a penalty or tax on the oem s use of a competing pc operating system . since 1988 microsoft s use of per processor licenses has increased . 37 1995 2007 internet and the 32 bit era bill gates giving his deposition in 1998 for the united states v. microsoft trial . 31 following bill gates s internal internet tidal wave memo on may 26 1995 microsoft began to redefine its offerings and expand its product line into computer networking and the world wide web . 38 the company released windows 95 on august 24 1995 featuring pre emptive multitasking a completely new user interface with a novel start button and 32 bit compatibility ; similar to nt it provided the win32 api . 39 40 20 windows 95 came bundled with the online service msn which was at first intended to be a competitor to the internet and for oems internet explorer a web browser . internet explorer was not bundled with the retail windows 95 boxes because the boxes were printed before the team finished the web browser and instead was included in the windows 95 plus pack . 41 branching out into new markets in 1996 microsoft and nbc universal created a new 24 7 cable news station msnbc . 42 microsoft created windows ce 1.0 a new os designed for devices with low memory and other constraints such as personal digital assistants . 43 in october 1997 the justice department filed a motion in the federal district court stating that microsoft violated an agreement signed in 1994 and asked the court to stop the bundling of internet explorer with windows . 17 323 324 in 1996 microsoft released windows