121-556: Microsoft Push Notification Service (commonly referred to as MPNS ) is a mobile service developed by Microsoft . It allows for developers to send push data from servers to Windows Phone applications. The MPNS is natively supported on applications that target the Windows Phone 8 Operating System. Microsoft announced the Windows Notification Service for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.1 in 2011, effectively replacing
242-658: A Vanity Fair profile stated that Ballmer and Gates no longer talk to each other due to animosity over Ballmer's resignation. In a November 2016 interview, Ballmer said he and Gates have "drifted apart" ever since, saying that they always had a "brotherly relationship" beforehand. He said that his push into the hardware business, specifically smartphones , which Gates did not support, contributed to their relationship breakdown. After saying in 2008 that he intended to remain CEO for another decade, Ballmer announced his retirement in 2013, after losing billions of dollars in acquisitions and on
363-633: A BASIC interpreter for the device. Gates called MITS and claimed that he had a working interpreter, and MITS requested a demonstration. Allen worked on a simulator for the Altair while Gates developed the interpreter, and it worked flawlessly when they demonstrated it to MITS in March 1975 in Albuquerque, New Mexico . MITS agreed to distribute it, marketing it as Altair BASIC . Gates and Allen established Microsoft on April 4, 1975, with Gates as CEO, and Allen suggested
484-430: A mind meld . Combative debates—a part of Microsoft's corporate culture—that many observers believed were personal arguments occurred within the relationship; while Gates was glad in 2000 that Ballmer was willing to become CEO so he could focus on technology, The Wall Street Journal reported that there was tension surrounding the transition of authority. Things became so bitter that, on one occasion, Gates stormed out of
605-525: 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." 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
726-448: A call must verify on their respective ends. On October 7, Microsoft acquired Ally.io, a software service that measures companies' progress against OKRs . Microsoft plans to incorporate Ally.io into its Viva family of employee experience products. On January 18, 2022, Microsoft announced the acquisition of American video game developer and holding company Activision Blizzard in an all-cash deal worth $ 68.7 billion. Activision Blizzard
847-517: A chain of Microsoft-branded retail stores, and on October 22, 2009, the first retail Microsoft Store opened in Scottsdale, Arizona ; the same day 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 an extensive reworking of Windows. As the smartphone industry boomed in the late 2000s, Microsoft had struggled to keep up with its rivals in providing
968-717: A combination of AI, high-performance computing and quantum computing . The service includes Copilot, a GPT-4 based large language model tool to query and visualize data, write code, initiate simulations, and educate researchers. At a November 2023 developer conference, Microsoft announced two new custom-designed computing chips: The Maia chip, designed to run large language models, and Cobalt CPU, designed to power general cloud services on Azure. On November 20, 2023, Satya Nadella announced that Sam Altman , who had been ousted as CEO of OpenAI just days earlier, and Greg Brockman , who had resigned as president, would join Microsoft to lead
1089-626: A complaint from your government is a very awkward, uncomfortable position to be in. It just has all downside. People assume if the government brought a complaint that there's really a problem, and your ability to say we're a good, proper, moral place is tough. It's actually tough, even though you feel that way about yourselves." Upon becoming CEO, Ballmer required detailed business justification to approve new products, rather than allowing hundreds of products that sounded potentially interesting or trendy. In 2005, he recruited B. Kevin Turner from Walmart , who
1210-515: A completely new user interface with a novel start button , and 32-bit compatibility; similar to NT, it provided the Win32 API. 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 has not bundled with the retail Windows 95 boxes, because the boxes were printed before
1331-458: A conference in NYC in 2009, Ballmer criticized Apple's pricing, saying, "Now I think the tide has turned back the other direction (against Apple). The economy is helpful. Paying an extra $ 500 for a computer in this environment—same piece of hardware—paying $ 500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be." In 2015, when Apple had become
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#17328911311691452-575: A corporation instead of a private partnership, he proposed that Ballmer own 8% of the company in exchange for cancelling the profit-sharing model. Paul Allen initially disagreed, but Gates and Allen reached an agreement when Gates agreed to fund an outsized majority of Ballmer's 8% stake. When Microsoft was incorporated in 1981, Ballmer owned 8% of the company. In 2003, Ballmer sold 39.3 million Microsoft shares for about $ 955 million, reducing his ownership to 4%. The same year, he replaced Microsoft's employee stock options program. In his first 20 years at
1573-452: A day after hosting a Sting concert for 50 people, including Microsoft executives, in Davos , Switzerland. On January 23, 2023, Microsoft announced a new multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment deal with ChatGPT developer OpenAI . In June 2023, Microsoft released Azure Quantum Elements to run molecular simulations and calculations in computational chemistry and materials science using
1694-547: A deluxe version for $ 399.99. Increasingly present in the hardware business following Xbox, Microsoft 2006 released the Zune series of digital media players, a successor of its previous software platform Portable Media Center . These expanded on previous hardware commitments from Microsoft following its original Microsoft Mouse in 1983; as of 2007 the company sold the best-selling wired keyboard ( Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 ), mouse ( IntelliMouse ), and desktop webcam ( LifeCam ) in
1815-600: A dozen new businesses, such as the data centers division and the Xbox entertainment and devices division ($ 8.9 billion), and oversaw the acquisition of Skype. Ballmer also constructed the company's $ 20 billion Enterprise Business, consisting of new products and services such as Exchange , Windows Server , SQL Server , SharePoint , System Center, and Dynamics CRM , each of which initially faced an uphill battle for acceptance but have emerged as leading or dominant in each category. This diversified product mix helped to offset
1936-469: A graphical extension for MS-DOS , despite having begun jointly developing OS/2 with IBM that August. Microsoft moved its headquarters from Bellevue to Redmond, Washington , on February 26, 1986, and went public on March 13, with the resulting rise in stock making an estimated four billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees. Microsoft released its version of OS/2 to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) on April 2, 1987. In 1990,
2057-463: A joint venture with NBC since 1996. On October 1, Microsoft announced its intention to launch a news operation, part of a new-look MSN , with Windows 8 later in the month. On October 26, 2012, Microsoft launched Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface . Three days later, Windows Phone 8 was launched. To cope with the potential for an increase in demand for products and services, Microsoft opened
2178-455: A large publicly traded American company", saying he had "steered Microsoft out of some of the fastest growing and most lucrative tech markets (mobile music, headsets and tablets)". In 2009, and for the first time since Bill Gates resigned from day-to-day management at Microsoft, Ballmer delivered the opening keynote at CES . As part of his plans to expand on hardware , on June 19, 2012, Ballmer revealed Microsoft's first ever computer device,
2299-666: A local ownership group involving Ballmer made a "game-changing" commitment to invest $ 150 million in cash toward a proposed $ 300 million renovation of KeyArena and were ready to purchase the Seattle SuperSonics from the Professional Basketball Club LLC in order to keep the team in Seattle. However, this initiative failed, and the SuperSonics relocated to Oklahoma City , Oklahoma , where they now play as
2420-519: A major target of the controversy, will leave the company after the acquisition is finalized. The deal was closed on October 13, 2023. In December 2022, Microsoft announced a new 10-year deal with the London Stock Exchange Group for products including Microsoft Azure; Microsoft acquired around 4% of LSEG as part of the deal. In January 2023, CEO Satya Nadella announced Microsoft would lay off some 10,000 employees. The announcement came
2541-410: A meeting after a shouting match in which Ballmer jumped to the defense of several colleagues, according to an individual present at the time. After the exchange, Ballmer seemed "remorseful", the person said. Once Gates leaves, "I'm not going to need him for anything. That's the principle", Ballmer said. "Use him, yes, need him, no". In October 2014, a few months after Ballmer left his post at Microsoft,
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#17328911311692662-718: A member of the school's board of directors.) Ballmer, the first in his family to graduate from college, attended Harvard College , where he was a manager for the Harvard Crimson football team and a member of the Fox Club , worked on The Harvard Crimson newspaper as well as the Harvard Advocate , and lived down the hall from fellow sophomore Bill Gates . He scored highly in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition , an exam sponsored by
2783-611: A mode for the Windows operating system rather than a separate and unique operating system. In March the company also established guidelines that censor users of Office 365 from using profanity in private documents. In April 2018, Microsoft released the source code for Windows File Manager under the MIT License to celebrate the program's 20th anniversary. In April the company further expressed willingness to embrace open source initiatives by announcing Azure Sphere as its own derivative of
2904-555: A modern smartphone operating system, falling behind Apple and Google -sponsored Android in the United States. As a result, in 2010 Microsoft revamped their aging flagship mobile operating system, Windows Mobile , replacing it with the new Windows Phone OS that was released in October that year. It used a new user interface design language, codenamed "Metro", which prominently used simple shapes, typography, and iconography, utilizing
3025-574: A motion-sensing input device made by Microsoft and designed as a video game controller , first introduced in November 2010, was upgraded for the 2013 release of the Xbox One video game console. Kinect's capabilities were revealed in May 2013: an ultra-wide 1080p camera, function in the dark due to an infrared sensor, higher-end processing power and new software, the ability to distinguish between fine movements (such as
3146-587: A new 24/7 cable news channel, MSNBC . Microsoft created Windows CE 1.0 , a new OS designed for devices with low memory and other constraints, such as personal digital assistants . 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. On January 13, 2000, Bill Gates handed over
3267-418: A new advanced AI research team. However, the plan was short-lived, as Altman was subsequently reinstated as OpenAI's CEO and Brockman rejoined the company amid pressure from OpenAI's employees and investors on its board. In March 2024, Inflection AI 's cofounders Mustafa Suleyman and Karen Simonyan announced their departure from the company in order to start Microsoft AI, with Microsoft acqui-hiring nearly
3388-616: A number of "holiday stores" across the U.S. to complement the increasing number of "bricks-and-mortar" Microsoft Stores that opened in 2012. On March 29, 2013, Microsoft launched a Patent Tracker. In August 2012, the New York City Police Department announced a partnership with Microsoft for the development of the Domain Awareness System which is used for Police surveillance in New York City . The Kinect ,
3509-410: A portion if it were to go through. On August 5, 2020, Microsoft stopped its xCloud game streaming test for iOS devices. According to Microsoft, the future of xCloud on iOS remains unclear and potentially out of Microsoft's hands. Apple has imposed a strict limit on " remote desktop clients " which means applications are only allowed to connect to a user-owned host device or gaming console owned by
3630-596: A publishing division named Microsoft Press . Paul Allen resigned from Microsoft in 1983 after developing Hodgkin's lymphoma . Allen claimed in Idea Man: A Memoir by the co-founder of Microsoft that Gates wanted to dilute his share in the company when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease because he did not think that he was working hard enough. Allen later invested in low-tech sectors, sports teams, commercial real estate, neuroscience, private space flight, and more. Microsoft released Windows 1.0 on November 20, 1985, as
3751-452: A record profit in 2007. 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". 2007 also saw
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3872-443: A rudimentary computer to track and analyze automobile traffic data. Gates enrolled at Harvard University while Allen pursued a degree in computer science at Washington State University , though he later dropped out to work at Honeywell . The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics featured Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems 's (MITS) Altair 8800 microcomputer, which inspired Allen to suggest that they could program
3993-489: A strong grasp of business and operations but lacking technological vision. On February 4, 2014, Satya Nadella succeeded Ballmer as CEO. Although as a child he was so shy that he would hyperventilate before Hebrew school , Ballmer is known for his energetic and exuberant personality, which is meant to motivate employees and partners, shouting so much that he needed surgery on his vocal cords. Ballmer's excited stage appearances at Microsoft events were widely circulated on
4114-521: A tablet called Microsoft Surface at an event held in Hollywood, Los Angeles. He followed this by announcing the company's purchase of Nokia 's mobile phone division in September 2013, his last major acquisition for Microsoft as CEO. On August 23, 2013, Microsoft announced that Ballmer would retire within the next 12 months. A special committee that included Bill Gates would decide on the next CEO. There
4235-449: A thumb movement), and determining a user's heart rate by looking at their face. 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 their biggest one-day percentage sell-off since
4356-454: A unique Channel URI Identifiers from the MPNS network. This identifier is used by the application developer's third-party server to reference the device that the particular data delivery request will be sent to. After the mobile device receives its Channel URI Identifier , it is then sent to the developer's server to be stored. When a server sends a POST message to the MPNS network for data delivery,
4477-505: Is US$ 500,000 per year. Some analysts deemed this unthinkable ten years prior, however, as in 2001 then-CEO Steve Ballmer called Linux "cancer". Microsoft planned to launch a preview of Intune for Education "in the coming weeks", with general availability scheduled for spring 2017, priced at $ 30 per device, or through volume licensing agreements. In January 2018, Microsoft patched Windows 10 to account for CPU problems related to Intel's Meltdown security breach . The patch led to issues with
4598-538: Is an American businessman and investor who served as chief executive officer of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014. He is the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is a co-founder of Ballmer Group , a philanthropic investment company. As of November 2024, Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates his personal wealth at around $ 145 billion, making him
4719-591: Is best known for producing franchises, including but not limited to Warcraft , Diablo , Call of Duty , StarCraft , Candy Crush Saga , Crash Bandicoot , Spyro , Tony Hawk's , Guitar Hero , and Overwatch . Activision and Microsoft each released statements saying the acquisition was to benefit their businesses in the metaverse , many saw Microsoft's acquisition of video game studios as an attempt to compete against Meta Platforms , with TheStreet referring to Microsoft wanting to become "the Disney of
4840-541: Is considered one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet , Amazon , Apple , and Meta . However it has been criticized for its monopolistic practices and the company's software has been criticized for problems with ease of use , robustness , and security . Childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen sought to make a business using their skills in computer programming . In 1972, they founded Traf-O-Data , which sold
4961-643: The Seattle Times reported that the IRS sued Ballmer, Craig Mundie , Jeff Raikes , Jim Allchin , Orlando Ayala and David Guenther in an effort to compel them to testify in Microsoft's corporate tax audit. The IRS had been looking into how Microsoft and other companies deal with transfer pricing . In 2015, he and his wife co-founded Ballmer Group , a philanthropic investment company that aims to help children, particularly those in poor families, achieve economic mobility . In December 2023, CNN estimated that Ballmer
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5082-516: The Altair 8800 . It rose to dominate the personal computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by Windows. The company's 1986 initial public offering (IPO) and subsequent rise in its share price created three billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires among Microsoft employees. Since the 1990s, it has increasingly diversified from the operating system market. Steve Ballmer replaced Gates as CEO in 2000 which would see
5203-518: The Channel URI Identifier is included within the message payload, along with the data to deliver, and any parameter options specified. The MPNS network will authenticate the identifier, and enqueue the data for delivery to the mobile device. Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington . Founded in 1975,
5324-454: The Department of Justice's Antitrust Division filed a competitive impact statement that said: "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
5445-562: The International School of Brussels . In 1973, he attended college prep and engineering classes at Lawrence Technological University . He graduated as valedictorian from Detroit Country Day School , a private college preparatory school in Beverly Hills , Michigan , with a score of 790 on the mathematical section of the SAT and was a National Merit Scholar . (He eventually became
5566-580: The Linux operating system. In May 2018, Microsoft partnered with 17 American intelligence agencies to develop cloud computing products. The project is dubbed "Azure Government" and has ties to the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) surveillance program. On June 4, 2018, Microsoft officially announced the acquisition of GitHub for $ 7.5 billion, a deal that closed on October 26, 2018. On July 10, 2018, Microsoft revealed
5687-510: The Mathematical Association of America , scoring higher than Bill Gates. He graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in applied mathematics and economics in 1977. Ballmer worked as an assistant product manager at Procter & Gamble for two years, where he shared an office with Jeff Immelt , who later became CEO of General Electric . After briefly trying to write screenplays in Hollywood, he started attending
5808-463: The Microsoft Azure virtual machines reliant on Intel's CPU architecture. On January 12, Microsoft released PowerShell Core 6.0 for the macOS and Linux operating systems. In February 2018, Microsoft killed notification support for their Windows Phone devices which effectively ended firmware updates for the discontinued devices. In March 2018, Microsoft recalled Windows 10 S to change it to
5929-569: The Open Networking Foundation started on March 23, 2011. Fellow founders were Google , HPE Networking , Yahoo! , Verizon Communications , Deutsche Telekom and 17 other companies. This nonprofit organization is focused on providing support for a cloud computing initiative called Software-Defined Networking. The initiative is meant to speed innovation through simple software changes in telecommunications networks, wireless networks, data centers, and other networking areas. Following
6050-591: The Stanford Graduate School of Business for his MBA (where Mukesh Ambani was his classmate ), but dropped out in 1980 to join Microsoft. Ballmer joined Microsoft on June 11, 1980, and became Microsoft's 30th employee and the first business manager hired by Gates. Ballmer joined Microsoft with a salary of $ 50,000 plus 10% of the profit he generated and no equity. However, Ballmer's profit-share started to balloon out of control as Microsoft grew. When Dave Marquardt suggested for Microsoft to reorganize as
6171-506: The Surface Go platform to the public. Later in the month, it converted Microsoft Teams to gratis . In August 2018, Microsoft released two projects called Microsoft AccountGuard and Defending Democracy. It also unveiled Snapdragon 850 compatibility for Windows 10 on the ARM architecture . In August 2018, Toyota Tsusho began a partnership with Microsoft to create fish farming tools using
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#17328911311696292-590: The World Wide Web . With a few exceptions of new companies, like Netscape , Microsoft was the only major and established company that acted fast enough to be a part of the World Wide Web practically from the start. Other companies like Borland , WordPerfect , Novell , IBM and Lotus , being much slower to adapt to the new situation, would give Microsoft market dominance. The company released Windows 95 on August 24, 1995, featuring pre-emptive multitasking ,
6413-489: The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S video game consoles. In February 2021, Microsoft released Azure Quantum for public preview. The public cloud computing platform provides access to quantum software and quantum hardware including trapped ion , neutral atom , and superconducting systems. In April 2021, Microsoft announced it would buy Nuance Communications for approximately $ 16 billion. The acquisition of Nuance
6534-510: The "talent-hoarding fiefdoms"; in 2012, this led Businessweek to say that the company "arguably [had] the best product lineup in its history". Ballmer drove Microsoft's "connected computing" strategy with acquisitions such as Skype . Under Ballmer's tenure as CEO, Microsoft's share price stagnated even as the company's annual revenue surged from $ 25 billion to $ 70 billion, while its net income increased 215% to $ 23 billion, and its gross profit of 75 cents on every dollar in sales
6655-804: The 1990s. Its best-known software products are the Windows line of operating systems , the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity applications, the Azure cloud computing platform, and the Edge web browser. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. Other consumer and enterprise software it produces include Internet search with Bing ; digital services through MSN ; mixed reality through HoloLens ; cloud computing with Azure ; and software development through Visual Studio . Today, Microsoft
6776-511: The CEO position to Steve Ballmer , an old college friend of Gates and employee of the company since 1980, while creating a new position for himself as Chief Software Architect . 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 decried
6897-589: The Clippers as an improvement over previous owner Donald Sterling , citing his willingness to acquire superstar players and finance the construction of Intuit Dome . Steven Anthony Ballmer was born on March 24, 1956, in Detroit , Michigan, as the son of Beatrice Dworkin and Frederic Henry (Fritz Hans) Ballmer, a manager at the Ford Motor Company . Frederic (1923–2000) was from Zuchwil , Switzerland, and arrived in
7018-648: The Federal Trade Commission examined Microsoft for possible collusion due to the partnership with IBM, marking the beginning of more than a decade of legal clashes with the government. Meanwhile, the company was at work on Microsoft Windows NT , which was heavily based on their copy of the OS/2 code. It shipped on July 21, 1993, with a new modular kernel and the 32-bit Win32 application programming interface (API), making it easier to port from 16-bit (MS-DOS-based) Windows. Microsoft informed IBM of Windows NT, and
7139-433: The Internet as viral videos . One of his earliest known viral videos was a parody video, produced for Microsoft employees in 1986, promoting Windows 1.0 in the style of a Crazy Eddie commercial. Ballmer and Brian Valentine later repeated this in a spoof promotion of Windows XP . A widely circulated video was his entrance on stage at Microsoft's 25th anniversary event in September 2000, where Ballmer jumped across
7260-461: The MPNS with this service. The MPNS can be used on applications that are installed on Windows Phone 8.1 if the source code is migrated to a Microsoft Silverlight application, modified to target Windows Phone 8.1 , and was already registered to use the MPNS before the upgrade. The MPNS is natively designed for use with Windows Phone 8 applications that implement the service. It allows for developers to send toast notifications , as well as update
7381-477: The Microsoft Azure application suite for Internet of things (IoT) technologies related to water management. Developed in part by researchers from Kindai University , the water pump mechanisms use artificial intelligence to count the number of fish on a conveyor belt , analyze the number of fish, and deduce the effectiveness of water flow from the data the fish provide. The specific computer programs used in
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#17328911311697502-542: The OS/2 partnership deteriorated. In 1990, Microsoft introduced the Microsoft Office suite which bundled separate applications such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel . On May 22, Microsoft launched Windows 3.0 , featuring streamlined user interface graphics and improved protected mode capability for the Intel 386 processor, and both Office and Windows became dominant in their respective areas. On July 27, 1994,
7623-477: The Surface tablet. Microsoft's stock price rebounded on the news. Ballmer says that he regretted the lack of focus on Windows Mobile in the early 2000s, leaving Microsoft a distant third in the smartphone market [in 2013]. Moreover, he attributed the success of the expensively-priced iPhones to carrier subsidies. He went on to say, People like to point to this quote where I said iPhones will never sell, because
7744-530: The U.S. smartphone market in January 2016 was 2.7%. During the summer of 2015 the company lost $ 7.6 billion related to its mobile-phone business, firing 7,800 employees. In 2015, the construction of a data center in Mecklenburg County , Virginia led to the destruction of a historic African American cemetery despite archeological recommendations for preservation. On March 1, 2016, Microsoft announced
7865-470: The United States in 1948. He is Jewish. Steve's mother was the daughter of Samuel Dworkin, a Russian Jew who fled to the United States in 1914 and became a merchant for a glass store. Through his mother, Ballmer is a second cousin of actress and comedian Gilda Radner . Ballmer grew up in the affluent community of Farmington Hills , Michigan . Ballmer also lived in Brussels from 1964 to 1967, where he attended
7986-462: The United States. That year the company also launched the Surface "digital table", later renamed PixelSense . Released in January 2007, the next version of Windows, Vista , focused on features, security and a redesigned user interface dubbed Aero . 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 products helped to produce
8107-589: The Windows division. Ballmer attracted criticism for failing to capitalize on several new consumer technologies, forcing Microsoft to play catch-up in the areas of tablet computing, smartphones and music players with mixed results. According to The Wall Street Journal , under Ballmer's watch, "In many cases, Microsoft latched onto technologies like smartphones, touchscreens, 'smart' cars and wristwatches that read sports scores aloud long before Apple or Google did. But it repeatedly killed promising projects if they threatened its cash cows [Windows and Office]." Ballmer
8228-484: The ability to detect, decide and engage before the enemy." In November 2018, Microsoft introduced Azure Multi-Factor Authentication for Microsoft Azure. In December 2018, Microsoft announced Project Mu , an open source release of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) core used in Microsoft Surface and Hyper-V products. The project promotes the idea of Firmware as a Service . In
8349-400: The alliance as a way to enforce indiscriminate restrictions over how consumers use software, and over how computers behave, and as 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. On April 3, 2000, a judgment was handed down in the case of United States v. Microsoft Corp. , calling
8470-424: The autonomy needed to make major management changes at Microsoft. When Ballmer took over as CEO, the company was fighting an antitrust lawsuit brought on by the U.S. government and 20 states, plus class-action lawsuits and complaints from rival companies. While it was said that Gates would have continued fighting the federal suit, Ballmer sought to settle these, saying: "Being the object of a lawsuit, effectively, or
8591-482: The company , citing it abused its dominance with the Windows OS, resulting in a judgment of €497 million ($ 613 million) and requiring Microsoft to produce new versions of Windows XP without Windows Media Player : Windows XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N. In November 2005, the company's second video game console, the Xbox 360 , was released. There were two versions, a basic version for $ 299.99 and
8712-531: The company an "abusive monopoly." Microsoft later settled with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2004. On October 25, 2001, Microsoft released Windows XP , unifying the mainstream and NT lines of OS under the NT codebase. The company released the Xbox later that year, entering the video game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo . In March 2004 the European Union brought antitrust legal action against
8833-593: The company announced it was laying off 1,850 workers, and taking an impairment and restructuring charge of $ 950 million. 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. In November 2016, Microsoft joined the Linux Foundation as a Platinum member during Microsoft's Connect(); developer event in New York. The cost of each Platinum membership
8954-461: The company became highly influential in the rise of personal computers through software like Windows , and the company has since expanded to Internet services, cloud computing , video gaming and other fields. Microsoft is the largest software maker , one of the most valuable public U.S. companies, and one of the most valuable brands globally. Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for
9075-589: The company has also expanded its video gaming business to support the Xbox brand, establishing the Microsoft Gaming division in 2022, which is currently the third-largest gaming company in the world by revenue, following the 2023 acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $ 68.7 billion. Microsoft has been market-dominant in the IBM PC–compatible operating system market and the office software suite market since
9196-620: The company's war profiteering from a $ 480 million contract to develop virtual reality headsets for the United States Army . On March 26, 2020, Microsoft announced it was acquiring Affirmed Networks for about $ 1.35 billion. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic , Microsoft closed all of its retail stores indefinitely due to health concerns. On July 22, 2020, Microsoft announced plans to close its Mixer service, planning to move existing partners to Facebook Gaming . On July 31, 2020, it
9317-528: The company's reliance on PCs and mobile computing devices as the company entered the post-PC era ; in reporting quarterly results during April 2013, while Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 had not managed to increase their market share above single digits, the company increased its profit 19% over the previous quarter in 2012, as the Microsoft Business Division (including Office 365 ) and Server and Tools division (cloud services) are each larger than
9438-486: The company, Ballmer headed several Microsoft divisions, including operations, operating systems development, and sales and support. In February 1992, he became Executive Vice President for Sales and Support. Ballmer led Microsoft's development of the .NET Framework . Ballmer was promoted to President of Microsoft in July 1998, making him the de facto number two after the chairman and CEO, Bill Gates. On January 13, 2000, Ballmer
9559-460: The concept of minimalism. Microsoft implemented a new strategy for the software industry, providing a consistent user experience across all smartphones using the Windows Phone OS. It launched an alliance with Nokia in 2011 and Microsoft worked closely with the company to co-develop Windows Phone, but remained partners with long-time Windows Mobile OEM HTC . Microsoft is a founding member of
9680-501: The conversation Mr. Ballmer said: "Just tell me it's not Google." I told him it was Google. At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office. Mr. Ballmer then said: "Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I'm going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to fucking kill Google." Ballmer then resumed attempting to persuade Lucovsky to stay at Microsoft. Ballmer has described Lucovsky's account of
9801-406: The cost into the customer's monthly bill. In July 2000, Ballmer called the free software Linux kernel " communism " and further claimed that it infringed with Microsoft's intellectual property. In June 2001 he called Linux a "cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches". Ballmer used the notion of "viral" licensing terms to express his concern over
9922-575: The creation of a multi-core unit at Microsoft, following the steps of server companies such as Sun and IBM. 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. Azure Services Platform , the company's entry into the cloud computing market for Windows, launched on October 27, 2008. On February 12, 2009, Microsoft announced its intent to open
10043-414: The developer purchases an SSL certificate from a third-party provider and uploads its private key and certificate data to their Microsoft Developer Portal account. Otherwise, the MPNS can be implemented to send notification data using an unencrypted channel. Applications that utilize unencrypted channels have rate and size limitations with all notification requests and content that is updated or displayed to
10164-432: The device. These limits can be lifted by purchasing an SSL certificate and switching to utilize MPNS encryption. The MPNS consists of servers and internal interfaces that maintain and store Channel URI Identifiers and device information, authenticate POST requests received from developer servers, and enqueue and deliver requested data to mobile devices. When an application registers for data and notifications, it receives
10285-444: The entirety of its 70-person workforce. As part of the deal, Microsoft paid Inflection $ 650 million to license its technology. In January 2024, Microsoft became the most valued publicly traded company. Meanwhile, that month, the company announced a subscription offering of artificial intelligence for small businesses via Copilot Pro. Steve Ballmer Steven Anthony Ballmer ( / ˈ b ɔː l m ər / ; March 24, 1956)
10406-785: The fact that the GNU General Public License (GPL) employed by such software requires that all derivative software be under the GPL or a compatible license. In April 2003 he even interrupted his skiing holiday in Switzerland to personally plead with the mayor of Munich not to switch to Linux. But he did not succeed with this and Munich switched to LiMux , despite his offering a 35% discount at his lobbying visit . In March 2016, Ballmer changed his stance on Linux, saying that he supports his successor Satya Nadella 's open source commitments. He maintained that his comments in 2001 were right at
10527-591: The incident as a "gross exaggeration of what actually took place". During the 2011 Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, he said: "You don't need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows Phone and you do to use an Android phone ... It is hard for me to be excited about the Android phones." In 2013, Ballmer said that Google was a " monopoly " that should be pressured from market competition authorities. On March 6, 2008, Seattle mayor Greg Nickels announced that
10648-440: The last version of the operating system; set to be released in the third quarter of 2021. It was released to the general public on October 5, 2021. In September 2021, it was announced that the company had acquired Takelessons, an online platform that connects students and tutors in numerous subjects. The acquisition positioned Microsoft to grow its presence in the market of providing online education to large numbers of people. In
10769-517: The merger of its PC and Xbox divisions, with Phil Spencer announcing that Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps would be the focus for Microsoft's gaming in the future. On January 24, 2017, Microsoft showcased Intune for Education at the BETT 2017 education technology conference in London . Intune for Education is a new cloud-based application and device management service for the education sector. In May 2016,
10890-487: The metaverse". Microsoft also named Phil Spencer , head of the Xbox brand since 2014, the inaugural CEO of the newly established Microsoft Gaming division, which now houses the Xbox operations team and the three publishers in the company's portfolio (Xbox Game Studios, ZeniMax Media, Activision Blizzard). Microsoft has not released statements regarding Activision's recent legal controversies regarding employee abuse, but reports have alleged that Activision CEO Bobby Kotick ,
11011-448: The name "Micro-Soft", short for micro-computer software. In August 1977, the company formed an agreement with ASCII Magazine in Japan, resulting in its first international office of ASCII Microsoft . Microsoft moved its headquarters to Bellevue, Washington , in January 1979. Microsoft entered the operating system (OS) business in 1980 with its own version of Unix called Xenix , but it
11132-475: The price at $ 600 or $ 700 was too high. And there was a business model innovation by Apple to get it essentially built into the monthly cellphone bill. Ballmer called the acquisition of the mobile phone division of Nokia his "toughest decision" during his tenure. Ballmer hosted his last company meeting in September 2013, and stepped down from the company's board of directors in August 2014. On December 24, 2014,
11253-665: The process fall under the Azure Machine Learning and the Azure IoT Hub platforms. In September 2018, Microsoft discontinued Skype Classic . On October 10, 2018, Microsoft joined the Open Invention Network community despite holding more than 60,000 patents. In November 2018, Microsoft agreed to supply 100,000 Microsoft HoloLens headsets to the United States military in order to "increase lethality by enhancing
11374-513: The release of Windows Phone , Microsoft undertook a gradual rebranding of its product range throughout 2011 and 2012, with the corporation's logos, products, services, and websites adopting the principles and concepts of the Metro design language . Microsoft unveiled Windows 8 , an operating system designed to power both personal computers and tablet computers , in Taipei in June 2011. A developer preview
11495-574: The release of the IBM PC in August 1981. IBM had copyrighted the IBM PC BIOS , so other companies had to reverse engineer it for non-IBM hardware to run as IBM PC compatibles , but no such restriction applied to the operating systems. Microsoft eventually became the leading PC operating systems vendor. The company expanded into new markets with the release of the Microsoft Mouse in 1983, as well as with
11616-507: The role of CFO. 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. On the same day, John W. Thompson took on the role of chairman, in place of Bill Gates, who continued to participate as a technology advisor. Thompson became the second chairman in Microsoft's history. On April 25, 2014, Microsoft acquired Nokia Devices and Services for $ 7.2 billion. This new subsidiary
11737-407: The same month, Microsoft acquired Australia-based video editing software company Clipchamp . In October 2021, Microsoft announced that it began rolling out end-to-end encryption (E2EE) support for Microsoft Teams calls in order to secure business communication while using video conferencing software. Users can ensure that their calls are encrypted and can utilize a security code that both parties on
11858-903: The same month, Microsoft announced the open source implementation of Windows Forms and the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) which will allow for further movement of the company toward the transparent release of key frameworks used in developing Windows desktop applications and software. December also saw the company discontinue the Microsoft Edge project in favor of Chromium backends for their browsers. On February 20, 2019, Microsoft Corp said it will offer its cyber security service AccountGuard to 12 new markets in Europe including Germany, France and Spain, to close security gaps and protect customers in political space from hacking. In February 2019, hundreds of Microsoft employees protested
11979-414: The stage and shouted, "I love this company!" Another viral video was captured at a Windows 2000 developers' conference, featuring a visibly perspiring Ballmer repeatedly chanting the word "developers". Ballmer was Gates' best man at his wedding to Melinda French , and the two men described their relationship as a marriage. They were so close for years that another Microsoft executive described it as
12100-464: The team finished the Web browser, and instead were included in the Windows 95 Plus! pack. Backed by a high-profile marketing campaign and what The New York Times called "the splashiest, most frenzied, most expensive introduction of a computer product in the industry's history," Windows 95 quickly became a success. Branching out into new markets in 1996, Microsoft and General Electric 's NBC unit created
12221-449: The tenth- richest person in the world . At the same time Forbes ranks him as the eighth-richest person with a net worth of $ 123 billion. Ballmer was hired by Bill Gates at Microsoft in 1980, and subsequently left the MBA program at Stanford University . He eventually became president in 1998, and replaced Gates as CEO on January 13, 2000. On February 4, 2014, Ballmer retired as CEO and
12342-520: The then-largest of Microsoft's corporate acquisitions in Skype Technologies in 2011, and an increased focus on hardware that led to its first in-house PC line, the Surface, in 2012, and the formation of Microsoft Mobile through Nokia . Since Satya Nadella took over as CEO in 2014, the company has changed focus towards cloud computing , as well as its large acquisition of LinkedIn for $ 26.2 billion in 2016. Under Nadella's direction,
12463-451: The tile image and flip notification text on the application's Windows Metro start screen tile. This is accomplished by developers by sending POST messages to the MPNS server network with the request and relevant content. A user typically must allow for data or notifications to be received before an application will register with the MPNS for notification data. The MPNS can be implemented to send notification data using an encrypted channel if
12584-669: The time but that times have changed. In 2005, Microsoft sued Google for hiring one of its previous vice presidents, Kai-Fu Lee , claiming it was in violation of his one-year non-compete clause in his contract. Mark Lucovsky , who left for Google in 2004, alleged in a sworn statement to a Washington state court that Ballmer became enraged upon hearing that Lucovsky was about to leave Microsoft for Google , picked up his chair, and threw it across his office, and that, referring to then Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt (who had previously worked for competitors Sun and Novell), Ballmer vowed to "kill Google." Lucovsky reports: At some point in
12705-407: The user. On September 21, 2020, Microsoft announced its intent to acquire video game company ZeniMax Media , the parent company of Bethesda Softworks , for about $ 7.5 billion, with the deal expected to occur in the second half of 2021 fiscal year. On March 9, 2021, the acquisition was finalized and ZeniMax Media became part of Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios division. The total price of the deal
12826-465: The world's most valuable company, Ballmer called Microsoft's decision to invest in Apple to save it from bankruptcy in 1997 as the "craziest thing we ever did". In 2016, Ballmer revisited his iPhone statements, saying, "People like to point to this quote...but the reason I said that was [that] the price of $ 600–$ 700 was too high". He said he did not realize that Apple was going to have phone carriers build
12947-607: The year 2000, after its fourth-quarter report raised concerns among investors on the poor showings of both Windows 8 and the Surface tablet. Microsoft suffered a loss of more than US$ 32 billion. In line with the maturing PC business, in July 2013, Microsoft announced that it would reorganize the business into four new business divisions, namely Operating systems, Apps, Cloud, and Devices. All previous divisions will be dissolved into new divisions without any workforce cuts. On September 3, 2013, Microsoft agreed to buy Nokia 's mobile unit for $ 7 billion, following Amy Hood taking
13068-528: Was MS-DOS that solidified the company's dominance. IBM awarded a contract to Microsoft in November 1980 to provide a version of the CP/M OS to be used in the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC). For this deal, Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products which it branded as MS-DOS, although IBM rebranded it to IBM PC DOS . Microsoft retained ownership of MS-DOS following
13189-438: Was $ 8.1 billion. On September 22, 2020, Microsoft announced that it had an exclusive license to use OpenAI 's GPT-3 artificial intelligence language generator. The previous version of GPT-3 , called GPT-2 , made headlines for being "too dangerous to release" and had numerous capabilities, including designing websites, prescribing medication, answering questions, and penning articles. On November 10, 2020, Microsoft released
13310-451: Was a list of potential successors to Ballmer as Microsoft CEO, but all had departed the company: Jim Allchin , Brad Silverberg , Paul Maritz , Nathan Myhrvold , Greg Maffei , Pete Higgins , Jeff Raikes , J. Allard , Robbie Bach , Bill Veghte, Ray Ozzie , Bob Muglia and Steven Sinofsky . B. Kevin Turner , Microsoft's Chief Operating Officer (COO), was considered by some to be a de facto number two to Ballmer, with Turner having
13431-468: Was completed in March 2022. In 2021, in part due to the strong quarterly earnings spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic , Microsoft's valuation came to nearly $ 2 trillion. The increased necessity for remote work and distance education drove demand for cloud computing and grew the company's gaming sales. On June 24, 2021, Microsoft announced Windows 11 during a Livestream. The announcement came with confusion after Microsoft announced Windows 10 would be
13552-522: Was double that of Google or IBM . With the company's total annual profit growth of 16.4%, Ballmer's tenure at Microsoft surpassed the performances of other well-known CEOs such as General Electric 's Jack Welch (11.2%) and IBM 's Louis V. Gerstner Jr. (2%). These gains came from the existing Windows and Office franchises, with Ballmer maintaining their profitability, fending off threats from competitors such as Linux and other open-source operating systems and Google Docs . Ballmer also built half
13673-496: Was even named one of the worst CEOs of 2013 by the BBC . As a result of these many criticisms, in May 2012, hedge fund manager David Einhorn called on Ballmer to step down as CEO of Microsoft. "His continued presence is the biggest overhang on Microsoft's stock," Einhorn said in reference to Ballmer. In a May 2012 column in Forbes magazine, Adam Hartung described Ballmer as "the worst CEO of
13794-499: Was officially named the chief executive officer; he would shed the title of president in February 2001. As CEO, Ballmer handled company finances and daily operations, but Gates remained chairman of the board and still retained control of the "technological vision" as chief software architect. Gates relinquished day-to-day activities when he stepped down as chief software architect in 2006, while staying on as chairman, and that gave Ballmer
13915-684: Was released on September 13, which was subsequently replaced by a consumer preview on February 29, 2012, and released to the public in May. The Surface was unveiled on June 18, becoming the first computer in the company's history to have its hardware made by Microsoft. On June 25, Microsoft paid US$ 1.2 billion to buy the social network Yammer . On July 31, they launched the Outlook.com webmail service to compete with Gmail . On September 4, 2012, Microsoft released Windows Server 2012 . In July 2012, Microsoft sold its 50% stake in MSNBC, which it had run as
14036-535: Was released, with its server sibling, Windows Server 2016 , 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 timeframe 8 million Windows smartphones (2.5% of all smartphones) were made by all manufacturers (mostly Microsoft). Microsoft's share of
14157-425: Was renamed Microsoft Mobile Oy. On September 15, 2014, Microsoft acquired the video game development company Mojang , best known for Minecraft , for $ 2.5 billion. On June 8, 2017, Microsoft acquired Hexadite , an Israeli security firm, for $ 100 million. On January 21, 2015, Microsoft announced the release of their first Interactive whiteboard , Microsoft Surface Hub . On July 29, 2015, Windows 10
14278-439: Was replaced by Satya Nadella ; Ballmer remained on Microsoft's board of directors until August 19, 2014. Under Ballmer's leadership, a 14-year period, the company tripled sales and doubled profits, but lost its market dominance and missed out on 21st-century technology trends such as the ascendance of smartphones in the forms of iPhone and Android . Players and sportswriters generally consider Ballmer's ownership of
14399-571: Was reported that Microsoft was in talks to acquire TikTok after the Trump administration ordered ByteDance to divest ownership of the application to the U.S. On August 3, 2020, after speculation on the deal, Donald Trump stated that Microsoft could buy the application, however, it should be completed by September 15, 2020, and that the United States Department of the Treasury should receive
14520-469: Was set to collect $ 1 billion in dividends from his ongoing ownership of Microsoft stock, after the company announced an increase in its dividend to $ 3 per share. Ballmer was a director of Accenture and a general partner of Accenture SCA from 2001 to 2006. Details about his remuneration in these positions remain undisclosed. In 2007, Ballmer said, "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." Speaking at
14641-436: Was the president and CEO of Sam's Club , to become Microsoft's chief operating officer. Turner was hired at Microsoft to lead the company's sales, marketing, and services group and to instill more process and discipline in the company's operations and salesforce. Since Bill Gates' retirement, Ballmer oversaw a "dramatic shift away from the company's PC-first heritage", replacing most major division heads in order to break down
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