1. INTRODUCTION
Microsoft founded in 1975 by Bill Gates. It is the largest information technology (IT) company. For the year 2005, its revenue was US$39,788 million and net income after taxes US$12,254. Nevertheless, since the early 2000s, a string of bad news had seriously undermined the future growth of Microsoft.
Personal Computer (PC) operating system and basic office are the near-monopoly software in the category. Purchase of QDOS (quick and dirty operating system) from Seattle programmer and renamed it the Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS) is the beginning of its strategic decision. Later, Microsoft introduced Windows, a graphics-based version of MS-DOS that borrowed features from its rival Apple’s Macintosh system. Drastically, Microsoft was successful leave behind this first mover company. Microsoft then developed Window NT to compete with UNIX.
As the desktop software market saturated, the bust of the dot.com, and entertainment’s trend, In November 2005, Microsoft announced its new strategy.
2. ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS
2.1 External Environment
General environment that highly affected Microsoft is political. U.S. Justice Department filed antitrust charges in 1998, claiming that Microsoft had stifled Internet browser competition and limited consumer choice. In March 2004, the European Union (EU) fined Microsoft and ordered it to take out its media player software from European’s Window version. Microsoft already reached the settlement for the first case, but by the worst, these legal actions can cause Microsoft to be split up.
Economically, IT industries remain at the positive growth. Although the data show that IT industry rather gloomy in 2006, but analysts predicted that the industry would tak...
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... similarity. Market commonality and resource similarity are the building blocks of a Competitor Analysis.
The table below cross-references Microsoft's three divisions and the markets within which each of its competitors participates to present a picture of multimarket competition.
4. CONCLUSION
With the positive external environment that gives many opportunities rather then thread for Microsoft, the internal strength from its core competencies, Microsoft is expected to sustain the competitive advantage. The new strategy diversification strategy is very accurate to response to the current challenge. Beside from that the international strategy that has been successfully adapt from the beginning. Microsoft also continuing looking the acquisition strategy to buy other organization to strengthen it core competencies in term of getting new talent and technology.
Microsoft is an American company that was founded by William Henry Gates III, as known as Bill Gates, and his his high school friend Paul Gardner Allen in 1975 April 4. But unluckily, Paul Allen resigned from Microsoft in 1983 after developing Hodgkin’s disease. In 1985 October 20, Microsoft released Microsoft window. It is the first original operating system. It is a graphical extension for MS-DOS. Even though, it’s not handy like nowadays Microsoft window. Then in 1990, Microsoft introduced Microsoft office, which is a bundle office productivity application with Microsoft Word and Microsoft excel. The Microsoft Word was the first application that could display italics. And the Microsoft Office would be available for free for all the PC World’s computer that is produce on that same year in November. In the 2000 February 17, Microsoft released Window 2000 operating system, and according to Microsoft it is the most safe operating system in the world at that time. But still, there are so many problems and glitches need to be fixed. Besides there are mutable computer viruses are made specially to attack Window 2000. Rush to gain back the sales. In the 2001 October 25 Window xp is available. The new operating system fix most of the problem. Although some of the user were still complaining the system that it will take your information, but in the 2007 January, there are 76% of people in the entire world are using the operating system.
Microsoft has devoted huge amounts of effort to marketing in developing their products and services, as well as to the integration of their software products with one another in an attempt to create a seamless and consistent computing environment for the user.
Topic A (oligopoly) - "The ' An oligopoly is defined as "a market structure in which only a few sellers offer similar or identical products" (Gans, King and Mankiw 1999, pp.-334). Since there are only a few sellers, the actions of any one firm in an oligopolistic market can have a large impact on the profits of all the other firms. Due to this, all the firms in an oligopolistic market are interdependent on one another. This relationship between the few sellers is what differentiates oligopolies from perfect competition and monopolies.
Competitive rivalry examines how intense the competition currently is in the marketplace, which is determined by the number of existing competitors and what each is capable of doing. (Arline, 2015).
Rivalry among established firms is fierce. There are several factors that illustrate this: established market players (6.1). The product is highly standardized and the switching costs of the customers are low. Players are aggressive (6.2)
The company was founded in 1975 by William Henry Gates III -- currently the chairman of Microsoft and the wealthiest man in the world -- when he called the makers of a new microcomputer, MITS, and asked to demonstrate the BASIC programming language for the system. After the demonstration, MITS agreed to distribute Altair BASIC so Bill Gates left Harvard University, moved to where MITS was located, and founded Microsoft in ...
In this paper, team B will discuss the internal and external factors of the Microsoft Corporation. We will explain how these factors affect the four functions of management, planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. Also, we will explain how globalization, technology, innovation, diversity and ethics will be delegated to manage the different factors. Microsoft Corporation was established in 1975 in Albuquerque, New Mexico producing software for developing, manufacturing, licensing, and support for range of software products and service for different type of computing devices. Microsoft grew from six employees to the largest personal computer software company in the world. By 1978, Microsoft earned $500,000 in the first quarter, and by the end of the year they earned revenue of $1,000,000. In the early 1980s Microsoft, in collaboration with IBM they released MS-DOS as their first 16-bit operating system. However after the late 1980s, Microsoft started to build its reputation by creating the Microsoft windows operating system and Microsoft office product, which includes internet explorer, excel, PowerPoint, and word programs. Then in the late 1990s, Microsoft teamed with Sega to incorporated their windows software package into the game developer’s Dreamcast hardware. Also they developed their own gaming system called the Xbox and that eventually was replaced by the xbox360. Microsoft has come a long way and is no longer just a worldwide leader in computer programming but also a major part of the technology world. Microsoft windows have been the flagship and accounts for most of its revenue for Microsoft: but the company has also branched ...
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.
1) As companies trying to sell consumers stuff, they are not competing with them, only other companies,
“His agreements with hardware manufacturers have often served to prevent the success of rival products even when they are already on the market and Microsoft versions have yet to be completed. In 1995, the development of Windows 95, a revolutionary operating system, drove hardware manufacturers to produce computers with more memory and more hard disk space. Microsoft thus effectively compelled the entire computer industry to follow its lead. Such practices involved Gates and Microsoft in legal struggles over alleged anticompetitive practices and copyright infringement throughout the 1990s”(McGuire 1). With their more advanced operating systems they had to have more advanced computers that can run them but the other companies couldn't update their operating system as fast.
The standardized quality of MS Windows98 has really made the PC market as a whole take a rocket boost from the past. Most people who oppose this stance would say that standardizing a product wouldn’t cause anything but a monopoly. This is fiction because people choose products that are simply reliable and of good quality. The success of Microsoft’s operating system hasn’t been used to cause a monopoly in the browser marker, but to increase the quality of their software. A statement from Bill Gates on the 7th of December stating “ I am proud of the work our people have done to bring the benefits of the Internet to consumers, and I am confident that the courts ultimately will uphold the importance of the freedom to innovate.” The intensity of the Internet lies in it openness, freedom and incredible reach. It is physically impossible for any individual or company to be its controlling switch, as the number of Internet users continue to grow by easy access due to Internet technologies being added to quality operating systems such as Windows. Internet user will constantly demand high quality and maximum choice, and will travel to wherever they receive the best value for the money and time. As consumer interest in the Internet continues to grow, Microsoft’s role will be what it always has been. Aimed to provide the software building blocks for a rich computing experience and to build into that software all of the open Internet standards, protocols and platforms services which enable developers to write great applications. Even though Microsoft has included Internet capabilities in its Windows operating system since the launch of Windows 95, the Windows platform also provides excellent support for other leading browsers besides Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer.
...he management. Microsoft management oversees the company’s goals and adjusts the mission and vision to ensure the realization of set objectives and goals. In fact, Microsoft Company’s management had done a lot in terms of formulation of domestic and international strategies to enhance profitability (Weiss, 2008).
Bellis, M. (n.d.). Putting Microsoft on the map: History of the MS-DOS Operating Systems, IBM & Microsoft. In About.com Inventors. Retrieved January 14, 2012, from http://inventors.about.com/od/computersoftware/a/Putting-Microsoft-On-The-Map.htm
Examination of the eight factors of rivalry intensity shows a number of competitors with many of them producing very similar product lines.
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.