About Microsoft Inc.
About microsoft
A leading developer of personal computer software, Microsoft is known for its Windows operating system and the Office suite of productivity software. The company also publishes a line of video games and owns a large network of online services, including the Azure cloud computing platform and the Bing search engine. The company is based in Redmond, Washington.
Microsoft first achieved industry-wide recognition in the 1980s and ’90s with MS-DOS and later Windows, which introduced a graphical user interface and effectively challenged longtime market leader Apple Inc.’s Mac OS. The company expanded its position in the business software arena by offering the Word, Excel and PowerPoint programs that helped make Microsoft desktop computers the standard for corporate use. It also diversified into the hardware business with the release of the Xbox gaming consoles and the Surface family of tablet computers, which bundles tablet hardware with the Windows operating system.
The company’s success in a fiercely competitive market fueled envy and resentment from rivals, who accused Microsoft of unfairly stifling technical innovation and pricing its products artificially high. The company was sued by the United States Justice Department over its sales practices, and a settlement in 1994 required it to change some of them.
Since the start of the 2020s, Microsoft has shifted its strategic approach to one more focused on building new technologies. The company has been acquiring companies that can help with areas such as AI and data analytics, while making strategic investments in other areas such as virtual reality and mixed reality. It has also been pushing its cloud computing and artificial intelligence platforms, and embracing open source code.
In addition, the company has been releasing new features for its products in a more rapid pace. The upcoming release of Windows 10 will include features such as the Timeline, which will provide a history of actions and apps on a device. The Windows Store will also offer the option to rate and review apps, which is an important tool for developers.
The overall rating for an app in the Microsoft Store is displayed on its product page and in search results, and it can be seen by anyone using the service, regardless of whether they’re a registered user. It’s also possible for developers to request ratings and reviews from their own customers through the API, but the company reserves the right to decline or remove reviews that contain spam, advertising, profanity, offensive content or other violations of its community guidelines. In such cases, the app will be flagged for review by a team member and the developer will be notified of the outcome. The feature is currently only available to commercial apps and not consumer-facing tools such as browser extensions and social media bots. Microsoft says that it plans to expand the capability to more app categories in the future.
