Microsoft also launched Slate, an online magazine edited by Michael Kinsley, which offered political and social commentary along with the cartoon Doonesbury. In an attempt to extend its reach in the consumer market, the company acquired WebTV, which enabled consumers to access the Web from their televisions. Microsoft also released the Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro joystick in an attempt to further expand its profile in the computer hardware market. The company released Microsoft Bob, a graphical user interface designed for novice computer users, in March 1995. The interface was discontinued in 1996 due to poor sales; Bill Gates later attributed its failure to hardware requirements that were too high for typical computers, and is widely regarded as one of Microsoft’s most unsuccessful products. As part of its strategy to broaden its business, Microsoft released Microsoft Encarta on March 22, 1993, the first encyclopedia designed to run on a computer.
1994: Windows and Office
In an internal memo to Microsoft employees on May 16, 1991, Bill Gates announced that the OS/2 partnership was over, and that Microsoft would henceforth focus its platform efforts on Windows and the Windows NT kernel. Microsoft Works would later be sold with other Microsoft products including Microsoft Word and Microsoft Bookshelf, a reference collection introduced in 1987 that was the company’s first CD-ROM product. Unlike the model of Microsoft Works, Microsoft Office was a bundle of separate office productivity applications, such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and so forth. The first operating system publicly released by the company was a variant of Unix announced on August 25, 1980. Allen came up with the original name of Micro-Soft, a portmanteau of microcomputer and software. It develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices.
2020: Windows 10, Windows 10 Mobile, Microsoft Edge and HoloLens
On September 22, 2020, Microsoft announced that it had an exclusive license to use OpenAI’s GPT-3 artificial intelligence language generator. On November 10, 2020, Microsoft released the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S video game consoles. In January 2019, Microsoft announced that support for Windows 10 Mobile would end on December 10, 2019, and that Windows 10 Mobile users should migrate to iOS or Android phones. On October 8, 2017, Joe Belfiore announced that work on Windows 10 Mobile was drawing to a close due to lack of market penetration and resultant lack of interest from app developers.
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- The acquisition positioned Microsoft to grow its presence in the market of providing an online education to large numbers of people.
- By then the company was the world’s largest producer of software for personal computers—ahead of former leader Lotus—and published the three most-popular Macintosh business applications.
- Microsoft launched its Indian headquarters as well, which would eventually become the company’s second largest after its U.S. headquarters.
- Due to potential copyright infringement problems with CP/M, IBM marketed both CP/M and PC DOS for US$240 and US$40, respectively, with PC DOS eventually becoming the standard because of its lower price.
- The company released Microsoft Bob, a graphical user interface designed for novice computer users, in March 1995.
- (Earlier magazine on-disk distributions included Robert Uiterwyk’s BASIC in the May 1977 issue of Information Age.) However, Xenix was never sold to end users directly although it was licensed to many software OEMs for resale.
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- On February 16, 1986, Microsoft relocated their headquarters to a corporate office campus in Redmond, Washington.
- When the IBM PC debuted, Microsoft was the only company that offered operating system, programming language, and application software for the new computer.
- When Microsoft launched several versions of Microsoft Windows in the 1990s, they had captured over 90% market share of the world’s personal computers.
- In 2002, Microsoft launched the .NET initiative, along with new versions of some of its development products, such as Microsoft Visual Studio.
- Microsoft released Windows XP and Office XP in 2001, a version that aimed to encompass the features of both its business and home product lines.
- On June 15, 2000, the company released a new version of its hand-held operating system, Windows CE 3.0.
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Later, in 2006, the company launched Microsoft adCenter, a service that offers pay per click advertisements, in an effort to further develop their search marketing revenue. In 2002, Microsoft launched the .NET initiative, along with new versions of some of its development products, such as Microsoft Visual Studio. In 2004, the company released Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, a version of Windows XP designed for multimedia abilities, and PickWin casino Windows XP Starter Edition, a version of Windows XP with a smaller feature set designed for entry-level consumers. However, Microsoft encountered more turmoil in March 2004 when antitrust legal action would be brought against it by the European Union for allegedly abusing its market dominance (see Microsoft Corp. v. Commission). Microsoft, in 2000, released new products for all three lines of the company’s flagship operating system, and saw the beginning of the end of one of its most prominent legal cases.
- Microsoft launched their second console, the Xbox 360, in 2005 – which was more successful than the original.
- Microsoft also released the Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro joystick in an attempt to further expand its profile in the computer hardware market.
- Unlike the model of Microsoft Works, Microsoft Office was a bundle of separate office productivity applications, such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and so forth.
- During the previous summer of 2015 the company wrote down $7.6 billion (~$9.8 billion in 2024) related to its mobile-phone business and fired 7,800 employees from those operations.
- The interface was discontinued in 1996 due to poor sales; Bill Gates later attributed its failure to hardware requirements that were too high for typical computers, and is widely regarded as one of Microsoft’s most unsuccessful products.
- Microsoft Corporation, based in Redmond, WA, is a global leader in software, services, and solutions with annual sales revenue exceeding $55 billion.
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2007: Foray into the Web, Windows 95, Windows XP, and Xbox
Due to potential copyright infringement problems with CP/M, IBM marketed both CP/M and PC DOS for US$240 and US$40, respectively, with PC DOS eventually becoming the standard because of its lower price. When the IBM PC debuted, Microsoft was the only company that offered operating system, programming language, and application software for the new computer. On January 21, 2015, Microsoft announced the release of their first Interactive whiteboard, Microsoft Surface Hub (part of the Surface family). On July 29, 2015, Microsoft released the next version of the Windows operating system, Windows 10. On October 1, Microsoft announced its intention to launch a news operation, part of a new-look MSN, at the time of the Windows 8 launch that was later in the month.
