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Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT, HKEx: 4338) is the world's largest software
company, with 2005 global annual sales of almost $40 billion USD and nearly
60,000 employees in 85 countries and regions. Headquartered in Redmond,
Washington, Microsoft develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide
range of software products for computing devices. Its most popular 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 home
entertainment products, such as the Xbox and WebTV.
Microsoft (short for microcomputer software) was founded in Albuquerque, New
Mexico in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop and sell BASIC
interpreters for the Altair 8800. After the market saw a flood of IBM PC clones
in the mid-1980s, Microsoft used its new position, which it gained in part due
to a contract from IBM, to dominate the home computer operating system market
with MS-DOS. The company later released an initial public offering (IPO) in the
stock market, which netted several of its employees millions of dollars due to
the ensuing rise of the stock price. The price of the stock continued its rise
steadily into the early 2000s. In Microsoft Windows, the company was selling
what would become the most widely used operating system in the world, which was
originally an add-on for MS-DOS; Microsoft continued to push into multiple
markets, such as computer hardware and television. In addition, Microsoft has
historically given customer support over Usenet newsgroups and the World Wide
Web, and awards Microsoft MVP status to volunteers who are deemed helpful in
assisting the company's customers.
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With what is generally described as a developer-centric business culture,
Microsoft has become widely known for some of its internal codes of conduct for
its employees. One example is the "eat your own dogfood" mantra, which describes
the practice of using pre-release products inside the company to test them in an
environment geared towards the real world. Microsoft has also become notorious
for its business practices—the U.S. Justice Department, among others, has sued
Microsoft for antitrust violations and software bundling. In addition, Microsoft
has been criticized for the insecurity of its software. Despite this, Microsoft
has won several awards, such as the "1993 Most Innovative Company Operating in
the U.S." by Fortune Magazine. The company is on the Fortune 500 list of
companies as of 2005.
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