The History of Microsoft
Microsoft, the largest software company in the world, was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975. It is headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Its products include the Windows operating system, Office suite (including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and Outlook), Microsoft Internet Explorer, and other software for personal computers.
Initially, the software company was primarily focused on developing an operating system that would run on IBM’s personal computer (PC) hardware. This OS became known as MS-DOS and later Windows. The software has since been used on many other devices, including smart phones, tablets and gaming consoles.
The history of Microsoft is closely linked with that of the computer industry as a whole. In the late 1970s, several computer manufacturers began producing “personal computers” – desktop computers with a graphical interface. These were designed to compete with the then-popular character-based “personal information machines” (PIMs) that used IBM’s proprietary DOS operating system.
These PCs were also designed to be easy to use and to communicate with other PCs, a major benefit for those who were new to computers at the time. Nevertheless, they still needed to be powerful enough to do what they were intended to do.
As a result, Microsoft began licensing its operating system to other companies for use on their own PCs. It was a move that set the stage for the modern company and its long-standing dominance in the PC operating system market.
With the release of Windows 95 in 1995, Microsoft positioned itself as the leader in productivity software. The software was much more user-friendly than the competitors, such as Lotus and WordPerfect. It also included more sophisticated capabilities, such as graphics and sound editing.
However, the operating system had some early problems and it took a few releases to gain widespread acceptance. Eventually, the platform gained popularity and its share of the PC market surpassed that of the character-based DOS platform.
For the next decade, Microsoft continued to dominate the PC operating system market. It also produced many other consumer and business-oriented applications and software packages, including the Xbox game console system.
It was also a major player in the cloud computing market, offering its own public cloud service called Azure, which has become one of the most popular cloud platforms worldwide.
On a more positive note, Microsoft is widely recognized for its work culture. In a recent CareerBliss survey, 95% of employees rated their experience working at Microsoft as good or very good.
Employees also reported a high level of satisfaction with their salaries at Microsoft, which are on average $81,000 per year, 23% higher than the national salary average. They also ranked their workplace culture, rewards you receive and growth opportunities as highly desirable.
Code reviews are an important part of software development at Microsoft, as they allow developers to discuss solutions and learn from each other’s experience. This is a great way to improve the code base and create a collaborative environment where everyone involved can grow and succeed.
