Skype’s acquisition by Microsoft --- a strategic decision??
Microsoft- Company history & current situation:
Microsoft Corporation is one of the largest software companies in the world which is headquartered at Washington, USA with annual revenues in excess of $50 billion. The company's core business is based on developing, manufacturing, and licensing software products, including operating systems, software development tools business and consumer applications, server applications as well as Internet software technologies, and services. Microsoft was founded in late 1970’s by Bill Gates & Paul Allen who sold BASIC, the first computer language program to MITS computers, their first customer. In 1981 Microsoft, Inc. was incorporated & sold software to IBM, the dominant mainframe company. From 1983, Microsoft was led by Bill Gates; Chairman of Microsoft & one the world's wealthiest individuals and most famous businessman. Microsoft has succeeded in placing at least one of its products on virtually every PC in the world, setting industry standards and defining markets in the process. Microsoft worked closely with Apple during the development of Apple's Macintosh computer, which was introduced in the year 1984. Revolutionary in its design, Mac featured a graphical user interface based on icons instead of the typed commands used by the IBM PC. This made its programs simple easy to learn and simple to use, even by computer novices. Microsoft introduced Mac version of Word, BASIC and the spreadsheet program Multiplan, which quickly made Microsoft the leading supplier of applications for the Mac. Revenues jumped from $50 million in 1983 to nearly $100 million in 1984 (James 2004). Bill Gates & his colleagues moved from a company base...
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By 1993 Microsoft's windows computer programming function became the most widely used operating system in the world. When Microsoft was still an idea, Bill Gates led Apple to believe he would help them succeed in creating the best computer programming systems in the nation, however, Gates left it unknown to Apple he planned to release his own software. Gates took notes and allowed Apple to release the software he helped them to create. Then shortly after, Microsoft introduced windows. Apple claimed Gates had stolen their ideas, as windows looked surprisingly similar to Apple's version. Gates claimed he used his own ideas because it was his own that made Apple's renowned software. As Microsoft was leading in the world, Apple threatened Microsofts position in the world of technological advances by introducing a new software program that could potentially take Microsoft's top spot in the market away from them. Gates quickly said that he had created a new software that was set to release also, although he had no idea of new software at the time and made the excuse to possibly buy himself a bit of time. About eight months later, Microsoft released the new software program, as bill gates had proclaimed, retaining the top spot in the market. Microsoft's expansion today has reached every technological realm possible. Occluded in the newest developments are
The now highly profitable and cash rich Microsoft diversified into a wide variety of software products including: compilers and interpreters for programming languages and word processors, spreadsheets and other office software some of these products were successful, and some were not. By the turn of the millennium, many of Microsoft's software products dominated the market in their respective categories.
As stated before, Apple is a multi-billion dollar technology industry. The major competitors that Apple and its products is Microsoft and its Windows platform, as well as Google, and Samsung smartphones. All of these companies are in the top 10 global brands, according to Interbrand (2015). Comparing strengths of all companies, Apple has a solid financial support system and it is highly innovative because of the success of the products and the leadership of Steve Jobs, however what weakens Apple is the premium pricing of their products. Microsoft also has the solid financial support due to its leader, Bill Gates. Microsoft also has the dominance over the operating systems. Windows based applications are on almost all computers in the market
Since the time when computers began to become an everyday item, we have seen a leader emerge. Microsoft Corporation has over the ages proved through technological advances and new innovations that it is a leader among computers and new upcoming technologies. Microsoft offers a variety of products some of which include operating systems for laptops and desktops, cell phones and gaming consoles. They also offer services that help us with everyday questions and tasks such as Microsoft Office, which most people use in their daily life to write reports, make presentations and keep track of accounts. They have a search engine called Bing, which is a rival to Google and an instant messaging device, Windows Live. Microsoft with its vast categories of services and products has a market value of 215.44 billion dollars falling behind Apple inc. who has a staggering 306.23 billion dollars which leads the market. Market capitalization is the total dollar market value of all of a company's outstanding shares. Market capitalization is calculated by multiplying a company's shares outstanding by the current market price of one share. The investment community uses this figure to determining a company's size, as opposed to sales or total asset figures. The annual revenue for Microsoft in 2010 reached a record of $62.5 billion, an increase of 7 percent compared with the previous fiscal year. The number of employees employed at Microsoft as of 2010 was 89,000. Google who is a well know competitor has 24,400 employees and Apple who employs 49,400 employees.
Two friends named Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft in Albuquerque. They started out with a small company and turned into an empire that employs 100,932 people (as of December of 2013). Before there was Microsoft there was Traf-O-Data, which kept track of traffic data, which at that time was groundbreaking. Microsoft is now a multibillion-dollar company and is a household name. Microsoft has now expanded to selling many different, successful products. Some of their very popular products include Skype, Xbox, the Surface tablet and Bing. Microsoft has 1.5 billion dollar revenue. Even though Microsoft had market dominance at one...
Microsoft Corporation is the market leader in the U.S. computer software company. Microsoft was founded in 1975 by William H. Gates III and Paul Allen both had met during their studies , through their common love of programming with the PDP -10 computer from Digital Equipment Corporation. In 1975 they collaborated on the first version of the programming language BASIC for the MITS Altair computer, the first personal computer . This led to the creation of Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico , in the same year. In 1979, Gates and Allen moved the company to Redmond , Washington. Allen resigned in 1983 for health reasons , but later rejoined the Board. The company went from 15 employees and $ 500,000 of revenue in 1978 to have more than 22,000 employees and 11.4 billion dollars in revenue in 1997.
The various similarities and differences of Microsoft and Apple are clear. They both possess favorable traits that make them the two top competitors in the computer industry. Apple is favored because of its use-friendly interface, artistic software and it’s beautifully constructed design. Windows is favored over its affordability, compatibility; because of its versatility it is used by the majority of the computer -using population. Apple and Microsoft both provide well designed operating
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology company with headquarters in Redmond, Washington. It develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and services.
Microsoft’s mission of placing a “PC running Microsoft software on every desk and in every home” drove their overall strategy early on. Depending on the business segment within Microsoft, one would see in place very different business models as the strategy for each line of business could vary. In the operating system (OS) segment, Microsoft initially brought in an existing product and modified this (MS-DOS) to work with the Intel microprocessor, which were the “brains” of the IBM PC. Microsoft partnered with IBM to provide the operating system for the IBM PC. In addition to developing Windows, Microsoft during this period was working to write applications for the Apple OS.
Microsoft is one of the biggest companies that has developed computer software over the years. They sell game systems such as the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One. They also produce a computer operating system called Windows. It was with only one man's entrepreneurial idea that started and sparked the company back in April 4, 1975. Although college is a traditional path to acquire a successful career, entrepreneurship can also lead to a successful fulfilling career.
It is a well-known fact that Microsoft is the most marketed operating system. This can be explained by the decision by Microsoft to design and sell its operating system to other computer manufacturers. This meant making it compatible with other hardware. Apple did not choose to do this, making its operating systems only compatible with its own computer hardware (Derene, 2009). In a website article called “HongKait.Com: Online Tips for Designers and Bloggers” Nina Krimly states statistics that identify Microsoft as controlling 91% of the market while Apple Mac around 5%. The exclusivity of Apple did not make it popular among those who used the computer to work on projects both at home and at work in the past ...
"Microsoft Corporation, is a multinational computer technology corporation with global annual revenue of US$44.28 billion and 71,553 employees in 102 countries as of July 2006. It develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices. Headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA, its best selling products are the Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software, each of which has achieved near-ubiquity in the desktop computer market. Microsoft possesses footholds in other markets, with assets such as the MSNBC cable television network, the MSN Internet portal, and the Microsoft Encarta multimedia encyclopedia. The company also markets both computer hardware products such as the Microsoft mouse as well as home entertainment products such as the Xbox, Xbox 360 and MSN TV" ("Microsoft").
$250 a second, $15,000 a minute and $20 million every day is what dropping out of one of the best rated colleges got him. 1980, Gates develops a Microsoft disk operating system and 2 million sold within the next 3 years, and around the early 1990’s 100 million + sold. Microsoft fulfilled his childhood dreams along with giving the world something that will probably always used. A little unknown fact is that the generic silhouette outline in Microsoft Outlook 2010 is actually Bill Gates mug shot from his
Microsoft is the leading and the largest Software Company in the world. Found by William Gates and Paul Allen in 1975 Microsoft has grown and become a multibillion company in only ten years. It all started with a great vision – “a computer on every desk and every home” - that seemed almost impossible at the time. Now Microsoft has over 44,000 employees in 60 countries, net income of $3.45 billion and revenue of 11.36 billion. Company dramatic growth and success was driven by development and marketing of operational systems and personal productivity applications software.
Microsoft has always been known as a software company, and not well known for its hardware. In fact, the only hardware that Microsoft sells to the retail market is branded peripherals. In its heyday, Microsoft was a market leader, bring an operating system to the masses, and leading in internet search. In recent years, however, most of the moves that Microsoft has made have not been in a market leader position, but have been in response to competitors threatening Microsoft’s positions.