Microsoft Corporation

▪ American company

 leading developer of personal-computer software systems and applications. The company also publishes books and multimedia titles, offers e-mail services, and sells electronic game systems, computer peripherals (input/output devices (input/output device)), and portable media players. It has sales offices throughout the world but does virtually all of its research and development at its corporate headquarters in Redmond, Wash., U.S.

 In 1975 Bill Gates (Gates, Bill) and Paul G. Allen, two boyhood friends from Seattle, converted BASIC, a popular mainframe computer programming language, for use on an early personal computer (PC), the Altair. Shortly afterward Gates and Allen founded Microsoft, deriving the name from the words microcomputer and software. During the next few years, they refined BASIC and developed other programming languages. In 1980 International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) asked Microsoft to produce the essential software, or operating system, for its first personal computer, the IBM PC. Microsoft purchased an operating system from another company, modified it, and renamed it MS-DOS (MS-DOS) (Microsoft Disk Operating System). MS-DOS was released with the IBM PC in 1981. Thereafter, most manufacturers of personal computers licensed MS-DOS as their operating system, generating vast revenues for Microsoft; by the early 1990s it had sold more than 100 million copies of the program and defeated rival operating systems such as CP/M, which it displaced in the early 1980s, and later OS/2. Microsoft deepened its position in operating systems with Windows (Windows OS), a graphical user interface whose third version, released in 1990, gained a wide following. By 1993, Windows 3.0 and its subsequent versions were selling at a rate of one million copies per month, and nearly 90 percent of the world's PCs ran on a Microsoft operating system. In 1995 the company released Windows 95, which for the first time fully integrated MS-DOS with Windows and effectively matched in ease of use Apple Computer (Apple Inc.)'s Macintosh OS. It also became the leader in productivity software such as word-processing (word processing) and spreadsheet programs, outdistancing long-time rivals Lotus and WordPerfect in the process.

      Microsoft dramatically expanded its electronic publishing division, created in 1985 and already notable for the success of its multimedia encyclopedia, Encarta. It also entered the information services and entertainment industries with a wide range of products and services, most notably the Microsoft Network and MSNBC (a joint venture with the National Broadcasting Company (National Broadcasting Co., Inc.), a major American television network).

      As a result, by the mid-1990s Microsoft, which became a publicly owned corporation in 1986, had become one of the most powerful and profitable companies in American history. It consistently earned profits of 25 cents on every sales dollar, an astonishing record; net income topped $2.1 billion in the company's fiscal year ending June 30, 1996. However, its rapid growth in a fiercely competitive and fast-changing industry spawned resentment and jealousy among rivals, some of whom complained that the company's practices violated U.S. laws against unfair competition. Microsoft and its defenders countered that, far from stifling competition and technical innovation, its rise had encouraged both and that its software had consistently become less expensive and more useful. A U.S. Justice Department investigation concluded in 1994 with a settlement in which Microsoft changed some sales practices that the government contended enabled the company to unfairly discourage OS customers from trying alternative programs. The following year, the Justice Department successfully challenged Microsoft's proposed purchase of Intuit, the leading maker of financial software for the PC.

 Partly because of its stunning success in PC software, Microsoft was slow to realize the commercial possibilities of network systems and the Internet. In 1993 it released Windows NT, a landmark program that tied disparate PCs together and offered improved reliability and network security. Sales were initially disappointing, but by 1996 Windows NT was hailed as the likely standard for PC networking, challenging Novell's NetWare. Microsoft did not move into Internet software until a new venture, Netscape Communications Corp., had introduced Navigator, a Web “browser” program that simplified the once-arcane process of navigating the World Wide Web. In a violent change of course, Microsoft quickly developed its own browser, Internet Explorer, made it free, and moved aggressively to persuade computer makers and Internet service providers to distribute it exclusively. By 1996 Microsoft was bundling Explorer with Windows OS and had begun the process of integrating Explorer directly into Windows. In response, Netscape accused Microsoft of violating its 1995 consent decree and sued; these efforts helped to persuade the U.S. Department of Justice to reopen a broad investigation of Microsoft.

      In 1999, following a trial that lasted 30 months, a judge found Microsoft in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and ordered the breakup of the company. In 2001 an appeals court overturned the breakup order but still found the company guilty of illegally trying to maintain a monopoly. The company's legal woes continued in 2004 with the European Union levying the largest fine, €497.2 million ($611 million), in the organization's history in retaliation for what were described as Microsoft's near-monopoly practices.

 In 2001 Microsoft released the Xbox, an electronic game console that quickly captured second place in the video gaming market. In 2002 Microsoft launched Xbox Live, a broadband gaming network for their consoles. A more powerful gaming console, the Xbox 360, was released in 2005. The following year the company launched the Zune family of portable media players in an attempt to challenge the market dominance of Apple's iPod.

      Microsoft began planning a major replacement for all of its operating systems, code-named Longhorn, in 2001. The project encountered numerous delays, in part because of efforts to address the public's growing concern with computer security and consumers' desire for PCs to have greater integration with a full range of entertainment equipment within the modern electronic home. The company started over, and the new operating system, now known as Vista, was released to other software developers late in 2006 and to the general public in January 2007. Like most new operating systems, it met with initial problems involving incompatibilities with older computer peripherals.

Gregg Pascal Zachary

 

* * *