Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational tech firm based in Redmond, Washington. It helped drive the personal computer revolution with software like Windows, and later branched into internet services, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, video games, and other fields. As a Big Tech company, Microsoft leads the software industry in revenue, ranks among the world's most valuable publicly traded companies, and holds one of the strongest global brand valuations.

The company was founded on April 4, 1975, by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, childhood friends who first worked together on a traffic-data computer called Traf-O-Data. Inspired by the Altair 8800 microcomputer featured in a 1975 Popular Electronics issue, Allen suggested they create a BASIC interpreter for it. Gates claimed to have a working version, and after a successful demonstration in Albuquerque, New Mexico, MITS agreed to distribute it as Altair BASIC. The name "Micro-Soft" was Allen's idea, a blend of "microcomputer" and "software." In 1977, the company opened its first international office in Japan through a deal with ASCII Magazine. Microsoft moved its headquarters to Bellevue, Washington, in 1979.

Microsoft entered the operating system market in 1980 with Xenix, a Unix variant, but its dominance came from MS-DOS. That year, IBM contracted Microsoft to supply an OS for its new personal computer. Microsoft bought a CP/M clone called 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products, rebranded it as MS-DOS, and licensed it to IBM as PC DOS. Microsoft kept ownership of MS-DOS after the IBM PC launched in 1981. The company also released the Microsoft Mouse and started Microsoft Press in 1983. Paul Allen left Microsoft that same year after being diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Windows 1.0, a graphical extension for MS-DOS, launched on November 20, 1985, even as Microsoft was jointly developing OS/2 with IBM. The company moved its headquarters to Redmond, Washington, in February 1986 and went public the following month, creating four billionaires and about 12,000 millionaires among employees. Microsoft released its version of OS/2 to manufacturers in 1987. In 1990, the Federal Trade Commission began investigating Microsoft for possible collusion with IBM, starting a long series of government legal battles.