Microsoft Corporation [6][7] (commonly referred to as
Microsoft or
MS) is an American
multinationaltechnology company headquartered in
Redmond, Washington, that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells
computer software,
consumer electronics and
personal computers and services. Its best known software products are the
Microsoft Windowsline of
operating systems,
Microsoft Office office suite, and
Internet Explorer and
Edge web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the
Xbox video game consoles and the
Microsoft Surface tablet lineup. As of 2011, it was the
world's largest software maker by revenue,
[8] and one of the
world's most valuable companies.
[9]
As of 2015, Microsoft is market-dominant in the
IBM PC-compatible operating system market and the
office software suite market, although it has lost the majority of the overall operating system market to
Android.
[13] The company also produces a wide range of other software for desktops and servers, and is active in areas including
Internet search (with
Bing), the
video game industry (with the
Xbox,
Xbox 360 and
Xbox One consoles), the digital services market (through
MSN), and mobile phones (via the operating systems of Nokia's former phones
[14] and
Windows Phone OS). In June 2012, Microsoft entered the personal computer production market for the first time, with the launch of the
Microsoft Surface, a line of
tablet computers. With the acquisition of Nokia's devices and services division to form
Microsoft Mobile, the company re-entered the smartphone hardware market, after its previous attempt,
Microsoft Kin, which resulted from their acquisition of
Danger Inc.[15]
The word "Microsoft" is a
portmanteau of "microcomputer" and "software".
[16]
History
1972–84: Founding and company beginnings
Paul Allen (l.) and
Bill Gates (r.) on October 19, 1981, in a sea of PCs after signing a pivotal contract. IBM called Microsoft in July 1980 inquiring about
programming languages for its upcoming PC line;
[17]:228 after failed negotiations with another company, IBM gave Microsoft a contract to develop the OS for the new line of PCs.
[18]
Paul Allen and
Bill Gates, childhood friends with a passion for
computer programming, sought to make a successful
business utilizing their shared skills.
[19] In 1972 they founded their first company, named
Traf-O-Data, which offered a rudimentary computer that tracked and analyzed automobile traffic data. Allen went on to pursue a degree in computer science at Washington State University, later dropping out of school to work at
Honeywell. Gates began studies at Harvard.
[20] The January 1975 issue of
Popular Electronics, which Allen bought at
Out of Town News, featured
Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems's (MITS)
Altair 8800 microcomputer.
[21] Allen suggested that they could program a
BASIC interpreter for the device; after a call from Gates claiming to have a working interpreter, MITS requested a demonstration. Since they didn't actually have one, Allen worked on a
simulator for the Altair while Gates developed the interpreter. Although they developed the interpreter on a simulator and not the actual device, the interpreter worked flawlessly when they demonstrated the interpreter to MITS in
Albuquerque, New Mexico in March 1975; MITS agreed to distribute it, marketing it as
Altair BASIC.
[17]:108, 112–114 They officially established Microsoft on April 4, 1975, with Gates as the
CEO.
[22] Allen came up with the original name of "Micro-Soft," as recounted in a 1995 Fortune magazine article.
[23][24] In August 1977 the company formed an agreement with ASCII Magazine in Japan, resulting in its first international office, "
ASCII Microsoft".
[25] The company moved to a new home in
Bellevue, Washington in January 1979.
[22]
Microsoft entered the OS business in 1980 with its own version of
Unix, called
Xenix.
[26] However, it was
MS-DOS that solidified the company's dominance. After negotiations with
Digital Research failed,
IBM awarded a contract to Microsoft in November 1980 to provide a version of the
CP/M OS, which was set to be used in the upcoming
IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC).
[27] For this deal, Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called
86-DOS from
Seattle Computer Products, branding it as MS-DOS, which IBM rebranded to
PC DOS. Following the release of the IBM PC in August 1981, Microsoft retained ownership of MS-DOS. Since IBM
copyrighted the IBM PC
BIOS, other companies had to
reverse engineer it in order for non-IBM hardware to run as
IBM PC compatibles, but no such restriction applied to the operating systems. Due to various factors, such as MS-DOS's available software selection, Microsoft eventually became the leading PC operating systems vendor.
[18][28]:210 The company expanded into new markets with the release of the
Microsoft Mouse in 1983, as well as with a publishing division named
Microsoft Press.
[17]:232 Paul Allen resigned from Microsoft in 1983 after developing
Hodgkin's disease.
1984–94: Windows and Office
Windows 1.0 was released on November 20, 1985 as the first version of the Microsoft Windows line.
While jointly developing a new OS with IBM in 1984,
OS/2, Microsoft released
Microsoft Windows, a graphical extension for MS-DOS, on November 20, 1985.
[17]:242–243, 246 Microsoft moved its headquarters to Redmond on February 26, 1986, and on March 13 the company went
public;
[29]the ensuing rise in the stock would make an estimated four billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees.
[30] Due to the partnership with IBM, in 1990 the
Federal Trade Commissionset its eye on Microsoft for possible
collusion; it marked the beginning of over a decade of legal clashes with the U.S. Government.
[31] Microsoft released its version of OS/2 to
original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) on April 2, 1987;
[17]:243–244 meanwhile, the company was at work on a
32-bitOS,
Microsoft Windows NT, using ideas from OS/2; it shipped on July 21, 1993, with a new
modular kernel and the
Win32 application programming interface (API), making
porting from
16-bit (MS-DOS-based) Windows easier. Once Microsoft informed IBM of NT, the OS/2 partnership deteriorated.
[32]
On July 27, 1994, the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division filed a Competitive Impact Statement that said, in part: "Beginning in 1988, and continuing until July 15, 1994, Microsoft induced many OEMs to execute anti-competitive "per processor" licenses. Under a per processor license, an OEM pays Microsoft a royalty for each computer it sells containing a particular microprocessor, whether the OEM sells the computer with a Microsoft operating system or a non-Microsoft operating system. In effect, the royalty payment to Microsoft when no Microsoft product is being used acts as a penalty, or tax, on the OEM's use of a competing PC operating system. Since 1988, Microsoft's use of per processor licenses has increased."
[37]
1995–2007: Internet and the 32-bit era
Following Bill Gates's internal "Internet Tidal Wave memo" on May 26, 1995, Microsoft began to redefine its offerings and expand its product line into
computer networking and the
World Wide Web.
[38] The company released
Windows 95 on August 24, 1995, featuring
pre-emptive multitasking, a completely new user interface with a novel
start button, and 32-bit compatibility; similar to NT, it provided the Win32 API.
[39][40]:20 Windows 95 came bundled with the
online service MSN (which was at first intended to be a competitor to the Internet), and for OEMs
Internet Explorer, a
web browser. Internet Explorer was not bundled with the retail Windows 95 boxes because the boxes were printed before the team finished the web browser, and instead was included in the Windows 95 Plus! pack.
[41] Branching out into new markets in 1996, Microsoft and
NBC Universal created a new
24/7 cable news station,
MSNBC.
[42] Microsoft created
Windows CE 1.0, a new OS designed for devices with low memory and other constraints, such as
personal digital assistants.
[43] In October 1997, the Justice Department filed a motion in the Federal
District Court, stating that Microsoft violated an agreement signed in 1994 and asked the court to stop the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows.
[17]:323–324
In 1996, Microsoft released Windows CE, a version of the operating system meant for personal digital assistants and other tiny computers.
Bill Gates handed over the CEO position on January 13, 2000, to
Steve Ballmer, an old college friend of Gates and employee of the company since 1980, creating a new position for himself as Chief
Software Architect.
[17]:111, 228[22]Various companies including Microsoft formed the
Trusted Computing Platform Alliance in October 1999 to, among other things, increase security and protect
intellectual property through identifying changes in hardware and software. Critics decry the alliance as a way to enforce indiscriminate restrictions over how consumers use software, and over how computers behave, a form of
digital rights management; for example the scenario where a computer is not only secured for its owner, but also secured against its owner as well.
[44][45]On April 3, 2000, a judgment was handed down in the case of
United States v. Microsoft,
[46] calling the company an "abusive monopoly";
[47]it settled with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2004.
[29] On October 25, 2001, Microsoft released
Windows XP, unifying the mainstream and NT lines under the NT codebase.
[48] The company released the
Xbox later that year, entering the
game console market dominated by
Sony and
Nintendo.
[49] In March 2004 the
European Union brought
antitrust legal action against the company, citing it abused its dominance with the Windows OS, resulting in a judgment of €497
million ($613
million) and to produce new versions of Windows XP without
Windows Media Player, Windows XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N.
[50][51]
2007–11: Windows Vista, mobile, and Windows 7
CEO
Steve Ballmer at the
MIX event in 2008. In an interview about his management style in 2005, he mentioned that his first priority was to get the people he
delegates to in order. Ballmer also emphasized the need to continue pursuing new technologies even if initial attempts fail, citing the original attempts with Windows as an example.
[52]
Released in January 2007, the next version of Windows,
Windows Vista, focused on features, security and a redesigned user interface dubbed
Aero.
[53][54] Microsoft Office 2007, released at the same time, featured a "
Ribbon" user interface which was a significant departure from its predecessors. Relatively strong sales of both titles helped to produce a record profit in 2007.
[55] The European Union imposed another fine of €899
million ($1.4
billion) for Microsoft's lack of compliance with the March 2004 judgment on February 27, 2008, saying that the company charged rivals unreasonable prices for key information about its
workgroup and
backoffice servers. Microsoft stated that it was in compliance and that "these fines are about the past issues that have been resolved".
[56] 2007 also saw the creation of a multi-core unit at Microsoft, as they followed in the steps of server companies such as Sun and IBM.
[57]
Gates retired from his role as Chief Software Architect on June 27, 2008, a decision announced in June 2006, while retaining other positions related to the company in addition to being an advisor for the company on key projects.
[58][59] Azure Services Platform, the company's entry into the
cloud computing market for Windows, launched on October 27, 2008.
[60] On February 12, 2009, Microsoft announced its intent to open a chain of Microsoft-branded retail stores, and on October 22, 2009, the first retail
Microsoft Store opened in
Scottsdale, Arizona; the same day the first store opened,
Windows 7 was officially released to the public. Windows 7's focus was on refining Vista with ease of use features and performance enhancements, rather than a large reworking of Windows.
[61][62][63]
As the smartphone industry boomed beginning in 2007, Microsoft struggled to keep up with its rivals
Apple and
Google in providing a modern smartphone operating system. As a result, in 2010, Microsoft revamped their aging flagship mobile operating system,
Windows Mobile, replacing it with the new
Windows Phone OS; along with a new strategy in the smartphone industry that had Microsoft working more closely with smartphone manufacturers, such as
Nokia, and to provide a consistent user experience across all smartphones using Microsoft's Windows Phone OS. It used a new user interface design language, codenamed "Metro", which prominently used simple shapes, typography and iconography, and the concept of minimalism. Microsoft is a founding member of the
Open Networking Foundation started on March 23, 2011. Other founding companies include
Google,
HP Networking,
Yahoo,
Verizon,
Deutsche Telekom and 17 other companies. The nonprofit organization is focused on providing support for a new
cloud computing initiative called Software-Defined Networking.
[64] The initiative is meant to speed innovation through simple software changes in telecommunications networks, wireless networks, data centers and other networking areas.
[65]
2011–14: Rebranding, Windows 8, Surface and Nokia devices
Following the release of
Windows Phone, Microsoft underwent a gradual
rebranding of its product range throughout 2011 and 2012—the corporation's logos, products, services and websites adopted the principles and concepts of the
Metro design language.
[66] Microsoft previewed
Windows 8, an operating system designed to power both personal computers and
tablet computers, in Taipei in June 2011.
[67] A developer preview was released on September 13, and was replaced by a consumer preview on February 29, 2012.
[68] On May 31, 2012, the preview version was released. On June 18, 2012, Microsoft unveiled the
Surface, the first computer in the company's history to have its hardware made by Microsoft.
[69][70] On June 25, Microsoft paid US $1.2 billion to buy the social network
Yammer.
[71] On July 31, 2012, Microsoft launched the
Outlook.com webmail service to compete with
Gmail.
[72] On September 4, 2012, Microsoft released
Windows Server 2012.
[73]
In July 2012, Microsoft sold its 50% stake in
MSNBC.com, which it had run as a joint venture with NBC since 1996.
[74] On October 1, Microsoft announced its intention to launch a news operation, part of a new-look
MSN, at the time of the Windows 8 launch that was later in the month.
[75] On October 26, 2012, Microsoft launched Windows 8 and the
Microsoft Surface.
[70][76] Three days later,
Windows Phone 8was launched.
[77] To cope with the potential for an increase in demand for products and services, Microsoft opened a number of "holiday stores" across the U.S. to complement the increasing number of "bricks-and-mortar" Microsoft Stores that opened in 2012.
[78] On March 29, 2013, Microsoft launched a Patent Tracker.
[79]
The
Kinect, a motion-sensing input device made by Microsoft and designed as a
video game controller, which was first introduced in November 2010, was upgraded for the 2013 release of the eighth-generation
Xbox One video game console. Kinect's capabilities were revealed in May 2013. The new Kinect uses an ultra-wide 1080p camera, it can function in the dark due to an infrared sensor, it employs higher-end processing power and new software, it can distinguish between fine movements (such as a thumb movements), and the device can determine a user's heart rate by looking at his/her face.
[80] Microsoft filed a patent application in 2011 that suggests that the corporation may use the Kinect camera system to monitor the behavior of television viewers as part of a plan to make the viewing experience more interactive. On July 19, 2013, Microsoft stocks suffered its biggest one-day percentage sell-off since the year 2000 after its fourth-quarter report raised concerns among the investors on the poor showings of both Windows 8 and the Surface tablet; with more than 11 percentage points declining Microsoft suffered a loss of more than US$32 billion.
[81] For the 2010
fiscal year, Microsoft had five product divisions: Windows Division, Server and Tools, Online Services Division, Microsoft Business Division and Entertainment and Devices Division.
John W. Thompson has been appointed the chairman of Microsoft, taking over from Bill Gates.
On September 3, 2013, Microsoft agreed to buy
Nokia's mobile unit for $7 billion.
[82] Also in 2013,
Amy Hood became the CFO of Microsoft.
[83] The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) was launched in October 2013 and Microsoft was part of the coalition of public and private organizations that also included
Facebook,
Intel and
Google. Led by
World Wide Web inventor
Tim Berners-Lee, the A4AI seeks to make Internet access more affordable so that access is broadened in the developing world, where only 31% of people are online. Google will help to decrease Internet access prices so that they fall below the UN Broadband Commission's worldwide target of 5% of monthly income.
[84] In line with the maturing PC business, in July 2013, Microsoft announced that it would reorganize the business into four new business divisions by function: Operating System, Apps, Cloud and Devices. All previous divisions will be diluted into new divisions without any workforce cut.
[85]
2014–present: Windows 10, Minecraft, HoloLens
A depiction of a Microsoft HoloLens user navigating the
shell, with an application window on the left, and the
Start menu on the right
Corporate affairs
On February 4, 2014,
Steve Ballmer stepped down as
CEO of Microsoft and was succeeded by
Satya Nadella, who previously led Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise division.
[86] On the same day,
John W. Thompson took on the role of chairman, with Bill Gates stepping down from the position, while continuing to participate as a technology advisor.
[87]
On April 25, 2014, Microsoft acquired Nokia Devices and Services for $7.2 billion.
[88] The new subsidiary was renamed Microsoft Mobile Oy.
[89] In May 2016, the company announced it will lay off 1,850 workers, taking an impairment and restructuring charge of $950 million. During the previous summer of 2015 the company wrote down $7.6 billion related to its mobile-phone business and fired 7,800 employees from those operations.
[90]
On September 15, 2014, Microsoft acquired the video game development company
Mojang, best known for its wildly popular flagship game
Minecraft, for $2.5 billion.
[91]
Products
On July 29, 2015, Microsoft released the next version of the Windows operating system,
Windows 10.
[93] Its server sibling,
Windows Server 2016, was released in September 2016.
In Q1 2015, Microsoft was the third largest maker of mobile phones selling 33 million units (7.2% of all), while a large majority (at least 75%) of them do not run any version of
Windows Phone – those other phones are not categorized as
smartphones by Gartner – in the same time frame 8 million Windows smartphones (2.5% of all smartphones) were made by all manufacturers (but mostly by Microsoft).
[14]
Microsoft's share of the U.S. smartphone market in January 2016 was 2.7%.
[94]
On March 1, 2016, Microsoft announced the merger of its PC and Xbox divisions, with Phil Spencer announcing that Universal Windows Applications would be the focus for Microsoft's gaming in the future.
[95]
Services
In June 2016, Microsoft announced a project named, Microsoft Azure Information Protection. It aims to help enterprises protect their data as it moves between servers and devices.
[96]
In July 2016, Microsoft launched a series of classes in data science through edX.org, the nonprofit online learning destination founded by Harvard University and MIT. The Data Science Curriculum is the first offering of the Microsoft Professional Degree program, a Microsoft-led initiative to help professionals grow their skills in critical fields.
[97]
Businesses
|
| This section needs to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (January 2015) |
Windows Division, Server and Tools, Online Services Division
The company's Client division produces the flagship Windows OS line such as Windows 8; it also produces the
Windows Live family of products and services. Server and Tools produces the server versions of Windows, such as
Windows Server 2008 R2 as well as a set of development tools called
Microsoft Visual Studio,
Microsoft Silverlight, a web application framework, and
System Center Configuration Manager, a collection of tools providing remote-control abilities, patch management, software distribution and a hardware/software inventory. Other server products include:
Microsoft SQL Server, a
relational database management system,
Microsoft Exchange Server, for certain business-oriented
e-mail and scheduling features,
Small Business Server, for messaging and other small business-oriented features; and
Microsoft BizTalk Server, for
business process management.
Business Division
The Microsoft Business Division produces
Microsoft Office including
Microsoft Office 2016, the company's line of office software. The software product includes
Word (a word processor),
Access (a
relational database program),
Excel (a
spreadsheet program),
Outlook(
Groupware, frequently used with
Exchange Server),
PowerPoint (presentation software),
Publisher (
desktop publishing software) and
Sharepoint. A number of other products were added later with the release of Office 2003 including
Visio,
Project,
MapPoint,
InfoPath and
OneNote. The division also develops
enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for companies under the
Microsoft Dynamics brand. These include:
Microsoft Dynamics AX,
Microsoft Dynamics NAV,
Microsoft Dynamics GP, and
Microsoft Dynamics SL. They are targeted at varying company types and countries, and limited to organizations with under 7,500 employees.
[98] Also included under the Dynamics brand is the
customer relationship management software
Microsoft Dynamics CRM, part of the
Azure Services Platform.
Entertainment and Devices Division
The Entertainment and Devices Division produces the
Windows CE OS for
embedded systems and
Windows Phone for
smartphones.
[99] Microsoft initially entered the mobile market through Windows CE for
handheld devices, eventually developing into the
Windows Mobile OS and now, Windows Phone. Windows CE is designed for devices where the OS may not directly be visible to the end user, in particular, appliances and cars. The division also produces
computer games, via its in-house game publisher
Microsoft Studios, that run on Windows PCs and other systems including titles such as
Age of Empires,
Halo and the
Microsoft Flight Simulator series, and houses the
Macintosh Business Unit which produces
macOS software including
Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac. Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division designs, markets, and manufactures
consumer electronicsincluding the
Xbox 360 game console, the handheld
Zune media player, and the television-based
Internet appliance MSN TV. Microsoft also markets
personal computer hardwareincluding
mice,
keyboards, and various
game controllers such as
joysticks and
gamepads.
Future Decoded
Future Decoded is a
business networking event held every year by Microsoft that allows business partners of the company to share their views on what the future holds for business, society, leadership and technology.
Corporate affairs
Board of Directors
The company is run by a
board of directors made up of mostly company outsiders, as is customary for publicly traded companies. Members of the board of directors as of January 2016 are
John W. Thompson,
Bill Gates, Teri L. List-Stoll,
Mason Morfit,
Satya Nadella,
Charles Noski,
Helmut Panke,
Sandi Peterson,
Charles W. Scharf,
John W. Stanton, and
Padmasree Warrior.
[100] Board members are elected every year at the annual shareholders' meeting using a majority vote system. There are five committees within the board which oversee more specific matters. These committees include the Audit Committee, which handles accounting issues with the company including auditing and reporting; the Compensation Committee, which approves compensation for the CEO and other employees of the company; the Finance Committee, which handles financial matters such as proposing mergers and acquisitions; the Governance and Nominating Committee, which handles various corporate matters including nomination of the board; and the Antitrust Compliance Committee, which attempts to prevent company practices from violating
antitrust laws.
[101]
Financial
When Microsoft went public and launched its
initial public offering (IPO) in 1986, the opening
stock price was $21; after the
trading day, the price closed at $27.75. As of July 2010, with the company's nine
stock splits, any IPO
shareswould be multiplied by 288; if one was to buy the IPO today given the splits and other factors, it would cost about 9
cents.
[17]:235–236[103][104] The stock price peaked in 1999 at around $119 ($60.928 adjusting for splits).
[105] The company began to offer a
dividend on January 16, 2003, starting at eight cents per share for the fiscal year followed by a dividend of sixteen cents per share the subsequent year, switching from yearly to quarterly dividends in 2005 with eight cents a share per quarter and a
special one-time payout of three dollars per share for the second quarter of the fiscal year.
[105][106] Though the company had subsequent increases in dividend payouts, the price of Microsoft's stock remained steady for years.
[106][107]
Standard and Poor's and
Moody's have both given a AAA rating to Microsoft, whose assets were valued at $41 billion as compared to only $8.5 billion in unsecured debt. Consequently, in February 2011 Microsoft released a corporate bond amounting to $2.25 billion with relatively low borrowing rates compared to
government bonds.
[108] For the first time in 20 years
Apple Inc. surpassed Microsoft in Q1 2011 quarterly profits and revenues due to a slowdown in PC sales and continuing huge losses in Microsoft's Online Services Division (which contains its search engine
Bing). Microsoft profits were $5.2 billion, while Apple Inc. profits were $6 billion, on revenues of $14.5 billion and $24.7 billion respectively.
[109] Microsoft's Online Services Division has been continuously loss-making since 2006 and in Q1 2011 it lost $726 million. This follows a loss of $2.5 billion for the year 2010.
[110]
On July 20, 2012, Microsoft posted its first quarterly loss ever, despite earning record revenues for the quarter and fiscal year, with a net loss of $492 million due to a
writedownrelated to the advertising company
aQuantive, which had been acquired for $6.2 billion back in 2007.
[111] As of January 2014, Microsoft's market capitalization stood at $314B,
[112]making it the 8th largest company in the world by market capitalization.
[113] On November 14, 2014, Microsoft overtook Exxon Mobil to become the 2nd most valuable company by market capitalization, behind only
Apple Inc. Its total market value was over $410B — with the stock price hitting $50.04 a share, the highest since early 2000.
[114] In 2015,
Reutersreported that Microsoft Corp had earnings abroad of $76.4 billion which were untaxed by the
IRS. Under U.S. law corporations don't pay income tax on overseas profits until the profits are brought into the United States.
[115]
Marketing
Microsoft Press Event at E3 Expo 2012
Windows 8 Launch Event in Akihabara, Tokyo on October 25, 2012
In 2004, Microsoft commissioned research firms to do independent studies comparing the
total cost of ownership (TCO) of
Windows Server 2003 to
Linux; the firms concluded that companies found Windows easier to administrate than Linux, thus those using Windows would administrate faster resulting in lower costs for their company (i.e. lower TCO).
[116] This spurred a wave of related studies; a study by the
Yankee Group concluded that upgrading from one version of Windows Server to another costs a fraction of the
switching costs from Windows Server to Linux, although companies surveyed noted the increased security and reliability of Linux servers and concern about being locked into using Microsoft products.
[117] Another study, released by the
Open Source Development Labs, claimed that the Microsoft studies were "simply outdated and one-sided" and their survey concluded that the TCO of Linux was lower due to Linux administrators managing more servers on average and other reasons.
[118]
As part of the "Get the Facts" campaign, Microsoft highlighted the
.NET trading platform that it had developed in partnership with
Accenturefor the
London Stock Exchange, claiming that it provided "
five nines" reliability. After suffering extended downtime and unreliability
[119][120]the LSE announced in 2009 that it was planning to drop its Microsoft solution and switch to a Linux-based one in 2010.
[121][122]
In 2012, Microsoft hired a political pollster named Mark Penn, whom the New York Times called "famous for bulldozing" his political opponents
[123] as Executive Vice-President, Advertising and Strategy. Penn created a series of negative ads targeting one of Microsoft's chief competitors,
Google. The ads, called "
Scroogled", attempt to make the case that Google is "screwing" consumers with search results rigged to favor Google's paid advertisers, that
Gmail violates the privacy of its users to place ad results related to the content of their emails and shopping results which favor Google products. Tech publications like Tech Crunch have been highly critical of the ad campaign,
[124] while Google employees have embraced it.
[125]
Layoffs
In July 2014, Microsoft announced plans to lay off 18,000 employees. Microsoft employed 127,104 people as of June 5, 2014, making this about a 14 percent reduction of its workforce as the biggest Microsoft lay off ever. This included 12,500 professional and factory personnel. Previously, Microsoft has laid off 5,800 jobs in 2009 in line with
US financial crisis.
[126][127] In September 2014, Microsoft laid off 2,100 people, including 747 people in the Seattle-Redmond area, where the company is headquartered. The firings came as a second wave of the layoffs that were previously announced. This brings the total number to over 15,000 out of the 18,000 expected cuts.
[128] In October 2014, Microsoft revealed that it was almost done with the elimination of 18,000 employees which was its largest ever layoff sweep.
[129] In July 2015, Microsoft announced another 7,800 job cuts in the next several months.
[130] In May 2016, Microsoft announced another 1,850 job cuts mostly in (Nokia) mobile phone division. As a result, the company will record an impairment and restructuring charge of approximately $950 million, of which approximately $200 million will relate to severance payments.
[131]
United States government
Microsoft provides information about reported bugs in their software to intelligence agencies of the United States government, prior to the public release of the fix. A Microsoft spokesperson has stated that the corporation runs several programs that facilitate the sharing of such information with the U.S. government.
[132] Following media reports about
PRISM, NSA's massive electronic
surveillance program, in May 2013, several technology companies were identified as participants, including Microsoft.
[133] According to leaks of said program, Microsoft joined the PRISM program in 2007.
[134] However, in June 2013, an official statement from Microsoft flatly denied their participation in the program:
We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis. In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers. If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data, we don't participate in it.
[135]
During the first six months in 2013, Microsoft had received requests that affected between 15,000 and 15,999 accounts.
[136] In December 2013, the company made statement to further emphasis the fact that they take their customers' privacy and data protection very seriously, even saying that "government snooping potentially now constitutes an "
advanced persistent threat," alongside sophisticated malware and cyber attacks".
[137] The statement also marked the beginning of three-part program to enhance Microsoft's encryption and transparency efforts. On July 1, 2014, as part of this program they opened the first (of many) Microsoft Transparency Center, that provides "participating governments with the ability to review
source code for our key products, assure themselves of their software integrity, and confirm there are no "
back doors."
[138] Microsoft has also argued that the
United States Congress should enact strong privacy regulations to protect consumer data.
[139] In 2016, the company
sued the U.S., arguing that secrecy orders were preventing the company from disclosing warrants to customers in violation of the company’s and customers’ rights.
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