Windows Presentation Foundation ( WPF ) is a free and open-source user interface framework for Windows -based desktop applications. WPF applications are based in .NET , and are primarily developed using C# and XAML .
136-579: Originally developed by Microsoft , WPF was initially released as part of .NET Framework 3.0 in 2006. In 2018, Microsoft released WPF as open source under the MIT License . WPF's design and its layout language XAML have been adopted by multiple other UI frameworks, such as UWP , .NET MAUI , and Avalonia . WPF employs XAML , an XML -based language, to define and link various interface elements, and uses C# to define program behavior. WPF applications are deployed as standalone desktop programs. WPF supports
272-633: 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
408-409: A class defines the shared aspects of objects created from the class. The capabilities of a class differ between programming languages , but generally the shared aspects consist of state ( variables ) and behavior ( methods ) that are each either associated with a particular object or with all objects of that class. Object state can differ between each instance of the class whereas the class state
544-447: A destructor . An object expresses data type as an interface – the type of each member variable and the signature of each member function (method). A class defines an implementation of an interface, and instantiating the class results in an object that exposes the implementation via the interface. In the terms of type theory, a class is an implementation—a concrete data structure and collection of subroutines—while
680-407: A textbox being propagated to a bound string property in code), or source-to-UI (eg. a visual clock being updated to display the current time stored in code), or bi-directional. Data binding doesn't have any restrictions on types, and it is possible to bind structs , classes , or collections . Converters can be used to transpose the values and types being used during binding - for example, binding
816-525: 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
952-592: A UITableView is a UIScrollView is a UIView is a UIResponder is an NSObject. In object-oriented analysis and in Unified Modelling Language (UML), an association between two classes represents a collaboration between the classes or their corresponding instances. Associations have direction; for example, a bi-directional association between two classes indicates that both of the classes are aware of their relationship. Associations may be labeled according to their name or purpose. An association role
1088-445: A button, and all the buttons together compose the interface (other television sets that are the same model as yours would have the same interface). In its most common form, an interface is a specification of a group of related methods without any associated implementation of the methods. A television set also has a myriad of attributes , such as size and whether it supports color, which together comprise its structure. A class represents
1224-448: 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
1360-517: 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
1496-405: A class from its interface: the internal structure is made private, while public accessor methods can be used to inspect or alter such private data. Access specifiers do not necessarily control visibility , in that even private members may be visible to client external code. In some languages, an inaccessible but visible member may be referred to at runtime (for example, by a pointer returned from
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#17328448863281632-422: A collection of objects, such as instances of Body , Engine , Tires , etc. Object modeling languages such as UML include capabilities to model various aspects of "part of" and other kinds of relations – data such as the cardinality of the objects, constraints on input and output values, etc. This information can be utilized by developer tools to generate additional code besides the basic data definitions for
1768-457: A combination XAML editor and WPF visual designer, beginning with Visual Studio 2008. Prior to Visual Studio 2008, the WPF designer add-in, codenamed Cider, was the original release of a WYSIWYG editor for creating WPF windows, pages, and user controls. It was available for Visual Studio 2005 as a Visual Studio 2005 extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 CTP for the initial release of WPF. Visual Studio
1904-717: 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
2040-515: 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
2176-501: A concrete sub class. An abstract class is either labeled as such explicitly or it may simply specify abstract methods (or virtual methods ). An abstract class may provide implementations of some methods, and may also specify virtual methods via signatures that are to be implemented by direct or indirect descendants of the abstract class. Before a class derived from an abstract class can be instantiated, all abstract methods of its parent classes must be implemented by some class in
2312-452: 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
2448-547: 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
2584-487: A file format intended to be shown in web browsers via a NPAPI plugin, but NPAPI and XBAP support was phased out of support by browsers, and XBAP compilation is now no longer included for WPF for .NET. WPF is used to develop Visual Studio , Microsoft's flagship IDE , and was used for developing Microsoft Expression Blend . WPF and its layout language, XAML, have influenced multiple other UI frameworks. Silverlight (codenamed WPF/E - WPF Everywhere), released in 2007,
2720-469: 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,
2856-532: A group of single-language fonts; composite fonts embedding. Font linking and font fallback information is stored in a portable XML file, using composite font technology. The XML file has extension .CompositeFont . The WPF text engine also supports built-in spell checking . It also supports such features as automatic line spacing, enhanced international text, language-guided line breaking, hyphenation , and justification, bitmap effects, transforms, and text effects such as shadows, blur, glow, rotation etc. Animated text
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#17328448863282992-463: 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
3128-519: 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
3264-550: A mechanism for defining alternative UI for portions of a WPF application. There are several template types available in WPF for different scenarios, but they all have the general purpose of defining the contents, layout and structure of a UI element. In WPF, many visual properties can be animated. This is exposed through dependency properties, which is the same underlying system that data binding relies on. WPF animations are time-based, as opposed to frame-based. Animation classes are based on
3400-500: A member function), but an attempt to use it by referring to the name of the member from the client code will be prevented by the type checker. The various object-oriented programming languages enforce member accessibility and visibility to various degrees, and depending on the language's type system and compilation policies, enforced at either compile time or runtime . For example, the Java language does not allow client code that accesses
3536-558: 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
3672-555: 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
3808-574: 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
3944-587: 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
4080-418: 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
4216-616: 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 ,
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4352-429: A number of common user interface elements, such as 2D/3D rendering, fixed and adaptive documents , typography , vector graphics , runtime animation , and pre-rendered media. These elements can then be linked and manipulated based on various events, user interactions, and data bindings . WPF runtime libraries are included with all versions of Microsoft Windows since Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 . At
4488-525: A pair of files: a XAML file and an associated C# file with the extension .xaml.cs , often referred to as a "code-behind". The XAML file declaratively defines the layout, contents and other properties of the UI element, while the C# file allows exposure of code entry points for interactivity. A basic example of an interactive Hello, World! program could be created like so: MainWindow.xaml: MainWindow.xaml.cs: In
4624-410: 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
4760-596: 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
4896-452: 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
5032-443: 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
5168-421: A superclass of Rectangle and Ellipse , while Square would be a subclass of Rectangle . These are all subset relations in set theory as well, i.e., all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares. A common conceptual error is to mistake a part of relation with a subclass. For example, a car and truck are both kinds of vehicles and it would be appropriate to model them as subclasses of
5304-530: A technique of propagating changes between user interface elements and the object model of the program. For instance, a textblock defined in XAML could bind its contents to a string property stored on a C# object in the following way: This would make the textblock display the value of the Username property. The direction data binding happens is configurable - it can be defined to go UI-to-source (eg. text entered into
5440-429: A textbox to a DateTime property, but using a converter to display the time as a formatted localised date string . Most properties on built-in controls can be databound, and custom-made controls can create bindable properties by defining Dependency Properties. MVVM , the architectural pattern encouraged by Microsoft for WPF developers, relies heavily on data binding. Using templates and styles, developers can define
5576-449: 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
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5712-601: A type is an interface . Different (concrete) classes can produce objects of the same (abstract) type (depending on type system). For example, the type (interface) Stack might be implemented by SmallStack that is fast for small stacks but scales poorly and ScalableStack that scales well but has high overhead for small stacks. A class contains data field descriptions (or properties , fields , data members , or attributes ). These are usually field types and names that will be associated with state variables at program run time; these state variables either belong to
5848-488: A vehicle class. However, it would be an error to model the parts of the car as subclass relations. For example, a car is composed of an engine and body, but it would not be appropriate to model an engine or body as a subclass of a car. In object-oriented modeling these kinds of relations are typically modeled as object properties. In this example, the Car class would have a property called parts . parts would be typed to hold
5984-578: A wide number of text features, including ligatures , old-style numerals , swash variants, fraction , superscript and subscript , small caps , ruby characters , glyph substitution , multiple baselines , and kerning . WPF handles texts in Unicode , and handles texts independent of global settings, such as system locale. In addition, fallback mechanisms are provided to allow writing direction (horizontal versus vertical) handled independent of font name; building international fonts from composite fonts, using
6120-505: 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
6256-402: Is a deprecated cross-browser browser plugin which contained WPF-based technology, including XAML, that provided features including video, vector graphics, and animations. Specifically, it was provided as an add-on for Mozilla Firefox , Internet Explorer 6 and above, Google Chrome 42 and below and Apple Safari . Microsoft encouraged developers to stop using Silverlight in 2015, and support
6392-506: Is a bitmap and 2D-vector graphics tool for exporting to XAML . Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington . Founded in 1975, 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
6528-407: Is a common set of access specifiers : Although many object-oriented languages support the above access specifiers,their semantics may differ. Object-oriented design uses the access specifiers in conjunction with careful design of public method implementations to enforce class invariants—constraints on the state of the objects. A common usage of access specifiers is to separate the internal data of
6664-417: Is also commonly known as a has-a relationship. For example, a class "Car" could be composed of and contain a class "Engine". Therefore, a Car has an Engine. One aspect of composition is containment, which is the enclosure of component instances by the instance that has them. If an enclosing object contains component instances by value, the components and their enclosing object have a similar lifetime . If
6800-557: Is also supported; this refers to animated glyphs, as well as real-time changes in position, size, color, and opacity of the text. WPF text rendering takes advantage of advances in ClearType technology, such as sub-pixel positioning, natural advance widths, Y-direction anti-aliasing, hardware-accelerated text rendering, as well as aggressive caching of pre-rendered text in video memory. ClearType cannot be turned off in older WPF 3.x applications. Windows Forms features are possible through
6936-591: 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
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#17328448863287072-542: Is called a pure abstract base class (or pure ABC ) in C++ and is also known as an interface by users of the language. Other languages, notably Java and C#, support a variant of abstract classes called an interface via a keyword in the language. In these languages, multiple inheritance is not allowed, but a class can implement multiple interfaces. Such a class can only contain abstract publicly accessible methods. In some languages, classes can be declared in scopes other than
7208-630: Is called, which is defined in the .xaml.cs file. This function updates the final textblock to contain a message greeting the user, addressing them by their submitted name. WPF supports most modern media types, including vector and raster images, audio, video, and can support both 2D and 3D rendering. It also supports implementing graphical effects on visual elements, such as HLSL pixel shaders and built-in effects such as blurs and drop shadows . WPF mainly relies on vector graphics, which allows most controls and elements to be scaled without loss in quality or pixelization . WPF employs data binding ,
7344-541: 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
7480-494: Is currently used in tools made by Unity , GitHub and JetBrains . XAML, which was first designed for WPF, has been adopted for other similar Microsoft-developed UI libraries, such as UWP , designed for Windows 10 , Windows 11 , Xbox One and Xbox Series S/X applications, and .NET MAUI (formerly Xamarin.Forms ), designed for creating cross-platform native Android and iOS apps. Developers of WPF applications typically use Microsoft Visual Studio . Visual Studio contains
7616-405: Is given end of an association and describes the role of the corresponding class. For example, a "subscriber" role describes the way instances of the class "Person" participate in a "subscribes-to" association with the class "Magazine". Also, a "Magazine" has the "subscribed magazine" role in the same association. Association role multiplicity describes how many instances correspond to each instance of
7752-411: Is not an intrinsic aspect of classes. An object-based language (i.e. Classic Visual Basic ) supports classes yet does not support inheritance. A programming language may support various class relationship features. Classes can be composed of other classes, thereby establishing a compositional relationship between the enclosing class and its embedded classes. Compositional relationship between classes
7888-455: Is not strictly required develop WPF projects, as solutions can be built in the command line using MSBuild . Microsoft Blend is a designer-oriented tool that provides an artboard for the creation of WPF applications with 2D and 3D graphics, text and forms content. It generates XAML that may be exported into other tools and shares solution (sln files) and project formats (csproj, vbproj) with Microsoft Visual Studio. Microsoft Expression Design
8024-414: Is shared by all of them. The object methods include access to the object state (via an implicit or explicit parameter that references the object) whereas class methods do not. If the language supports inheritance , a class can be defined based on another class with all of its state and behavior plus additional state and behavior that further specializes the class. The specialized class is a sub-class , and
8160-611: 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 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
8296-588: The DocumentViewer class, which is for reading fixed layout documents. The FlowDocumentReader class offers different view modes such as per-page or scrollable and also reflows text if the viewing area is resized. It supports both the XML Paper Specification and Open Packaging Conventions . WPF includes a number of text rendering features, including OpenType , TrueType , and OpenType CFF ( Compact Font Format ) fonts. This means that WPF can support
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#17328448863288432-454: 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
8568-1000: The IBM PC–compatible operating system market and the office software suite market since 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
8704-580: 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
8840-463: 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
8976-569: 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
9112-506: 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
9248-590: 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 ,
9384-489: 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
9520-538: The .NET type of property to be animated. For instance, changing the color of an element is done with the ColorAnimation class and animating the width of an element (which is typed as a double ) is done with the DoubleAnimation class. Animations can be grouped into Storyboards, which are the primary way to start, stop, pause and otherwise manipulate animations. WPF natively supports paginated documents. It provides
9656-543: The 1990s, it has increasingly diversified from the operating system market. Steve Ballmer replaced Gates as CEO in 2000 which would see 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,
9792-557: 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
9928-648: 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
10064-536: The Internet requires this level of flexibility and the technology standards such as the Web Ontology Language (OWL) are designed to support it. A similar issue is whether or not the class hierarchy can be modified at run time. Languages such as Flavors, CLOS, and Smalltalk all support this feature as part of their meta-object protocols . Since classes are themselves first-class objects, it is possible to have them dynamically alter their structure by sending them
10200-477: 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
10336-467: The Microsoft Connect event on December 4, 2018, Microsoft announced releasing WPF as open source project on GitHub . It is released under the MIT License . Windows Presentation Foundation has become available for projects targeting the .NET software framework, however, the system is not cross-platform and is still available only on Windows. In WPF, screens and other UI elements are defined using
10472-542: 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,
10608-530: 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
10744-436: The UI to automated test frameworks. Following the success of markup languages for web development, WPF introduced eXtensible Application Markup Language ( XAML ; / ˈ z æ m əl / ), which is based on XML . XAML is designed as a more efficient method of developing application user interfaces. XAML is a declarative language, meaning the developer (or designer) describes the behavior and integration of components without
10880-462: 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
11016-484: 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
11152-454: The above example, a UI element called MainWindow is declared as a subclass of the built-in Window class. The XAML file defines the layout, which in this example is a vertical collection of controls - a textblock outlining instructions to the user, a textbox for the user to type their name, a button to submit, and a results text block. When the button is clicked, the method SubmitButton_Click
11288-400: 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
11424-507: The appropriate messages. Other languages that focus more on strong typing such as Java and C++ do not allow the class hierarchy to be modified at run time. Semantic web objects have the capability for run time changes to classes. The rationale is similar to the justification for allowing multiple superclasses, that the Internet is so dynamic and flexible that dynamic changes to the hierarchy are required to manage this volatility. Although many class-based languages support inheritance, inheritance
11560-410: The class from outside the enclosing class. A related concept is inner types , also known as inner data type or nested type , which is a generalization of the concept of inner classes. C++ is an example of a language that supports both inner classes and inner types (via typedef declarations). A local class is a class defined within a procedure or function. Such structure limits references to
11696-418: The class it is based on is its superclass . As an instance of a class, an object is constructed from a class via instantiation . Memory is allocated and initialized for the object state and a reference to the object is provided to consuming code. The object is usable until it is destroyed – its state memory is de-allocated. Most languages allow for custom logic at lifecycle events via a constructor and
11832-431: The class name to within the scope where the class is declared. Depending on the semantic rules of the language, there may be additional restrictions on local classes compared to non-local ones. One common restriction is to disallow local class methods to access local variables of the enclosing function. For example, in C++, a local class may refer to static variables declared within its enclosing function, but may not access
11968-461: The class or specific instances of the class. In most languages, the structure defined by the class determines the layout of the memory used by its instances. Other implementations are possible: for example, objects in Python use associative key-value containers. Some programming languages such as Eiffel support specification of invariants as part of the definition of the class, and enforce them through
12104-597: The classes that they are derived from. For example, if "class A" inherits from "class B" and if "class B" implements the interface "interface B" then "class A" also inherits the functionality(constants and methods declaration) provided by "interface B". In languages that support access specifiers , the interface of a class is considered to be the set of public members of the class, including both methods and attributes (via implicit getter and setter methods ); any private members or internal data structures are not intended to be depended on by external code and thus are not part of
12240-482: 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
12376-531: 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
12512-593: 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
12648-605: 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, 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
12784-620: 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
12920-496: The components are contained by reference, they may not have a similar lifetime. For example, in Objective-C 2.0: This Car class has an instance of NSString (a string object), Engine , and NSArray (an array object). Classes can be derived from one or more existing classes, thereby establishing a hierarchical relationship between the derived-from classes ( base classes , parent classes or superclasses ) and
13056-460: 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
13192-575: 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
13328-474: The derivation chain. Most object-oriented programming languages allow the programmer to specify which classes are considered abstract and will not allow these to be instantiated. For example, in Java , C# and PHP , the keyword abstract is used. In C++ , an abstract class is a class having at least one abstract method given by the appropriate syntax in that language (a pure virtual function in C++ parlance). A class consisting of only pure virtual methods
13464-624: The derived class ( child class or subclass ) . The relationship of the derived class to the derived-from classes is commonly known as an is-a relationship. For example, a class 'Button' could be derived from a class 'Control'. Therefore, a Button is a Control. Structural and behavioral members of the parent classes are inherited by the child class. Derived classes can define additional structural members (data fields) and behavioral members (methods) in addition to those that they inherit and are therefore specializations of their superclasses. Also, derived classes can override inherited methods if
13600-421: 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. Class (computer programming) In object-oriented programming ,
13736-431: The full description of a television, including its attributes (structure) and buttons (interface). Getting the total number of televisions manufactured could be a static method of the television class. This method is associated with the class, yet is outside the domain of each instance of the class. A static method that finds a particular instance out of the set of all television objects is another example. The following
13872-446: The global scope. There are various types of such classes. An inner class is a class defined within another class. The relationship between an inner class and its containing class can also be treated as another type of class association. An inner class is typically neither associated with instances of the enclosing class nor instantiated along with its enclosing class. Depending on the language, it may or may not be possible to refer to
14008-432: The interface. Object-oriented programming methodology dictates that the operations of any interface of a class are to be independent of each other. It results in a layered design where clients of an interface use the methods declared in the interface. An interface places no requirements for clients to invoke the operations of one interface in any particular order. This approach has the benefit that client code can assume that
14144-623: The language allows. Not all languages support multiple inheritance. For example, Java allows a class to implement multiple interfaces, but only inherit from one class. If multiple inheritance is allowed, the hierarchy is a directed acyclic graph (or DAG for short), otherwise it is a tree . The hierarchy has classes as nodes and inheritance relationships as links. Classes in the same level are more likely to be associated than classes in different levels. The levels of this hierarchy are called layers or levels of abstraction. Example (Simplified Objective-C 2.0 code, from iPhone SDK): In this example,
14280-440: 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
14416-517: 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,
14552-487: 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 ,
14688-448: 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
14824-667: The object-oriented community consider antithetical to the goals of using object classes in the first place. Understanding which class will be responsible for handling a message can get complex when dealing with more than one superclass. If used carelessly this feature can introduce some of the same system complexity and ambiguity classes were designed to avoid. Most modern object-oriented languages such as Smalltalk and Java require single inheritance at run time. For these languages, multiple inheritance may be useful for modeling but not for an implementation. However, semantic web application objects do have multiple superclasses. The volatility of
14960-473: The objects, such as error checking on get and set methods . One important question when modeling and implementing a system of object classes is whether a class can have one or more superclasses. In the real world with actual sets, it would be rare to find sets that did not intersect with more than one other set. However, while some systems such as Flavors and CLOS provide a capability for more than one parent to do so at run time introduces complexity that many in
15096-405: The operations of an interface are available for use whenever the client has access to the object. The buttons on the front of your television set are the interface between you and the electrical wiring on the other side of its plastic casing. You press the "power" button to toggle the television on and off. In this example, your particular television is the instance, each method is represented by
15232-507: The other class of the association. Common multiplicities are "0..1", "1..1", "1..*" and "0..*", where the "*" specifies any number of instances. There are many categories of classes, some of which overlap. In a language that supports inheritance, an abstract class , or abstract base class ( ABC ), is a class that cannot be directly instantiated. By contrast, a concrete class is a class that can be directly instantiated. Instantiation of an abstract class can occur only indirectly, via
15368-458: The private data of a class to compile. In the C++ language, private methods are visible, but not accessible in the interface; however, they may be made invisible by explicitly declaring fully abstract classes that represent the interfaces of the class. Some languages feature other accessibility schemes: Conceptually, a superclass is a superset of its subclasses. For example, GraphicObject could be
15504-665: 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
15640-766: The programmer to define and call these special methods. Every class implements (or realizes ) an interface by providing structure and behavior. Structure consists of data and state, and behavior consists of code that specifies how methods are implemented. There is a distinction between the definition of an interface and the implementation of that interface; however, this line is blurred in many programming languages because class declarations both define and implement an interface. Some languages, however, provide features that separate interface and implementation. For example, an abstract class can define an interface without providing an implementation. Languages that support class inheritance also allow classes to inherit interfaces from
15776-513: 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
15912-623: 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
16048-507: 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
16184-407: 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
16320-903: 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
16456-464: 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
16592-653: The type system. Encapsulation of state is necessary for being able to enforce the invariants of the class. The behavior of a class or its instances is defined using methods . Methods are subroutines with the ability to operate on objects or classes. These operations may alter the state of an object or simply provide ways of accessing it. Many kinds of methods exist, but support for them varies across languages. Some types of methods are created and called by programmer code, while other special methods—such as constructors, destructors, and conversion operators—are created and called by compiler-generated code. A language may also allow
16728-451: The underlying APIs. As in web development, both layouts and specific themes are well suited to markup, but XAML is not required for either. Indeed, all elements of WPF may be coded in a .NET language ( C# , VB.NET ). The XAML code can ultimately be compiled into a managed assembly in the same way all .NET languages are. WPF applications are Windows-only standalone desktop executables . Historically, WPF supported compiling to XBAP ,
16864-444: The use of procedural programming . Although it is rare that an entire application will be built completely in XAML, the introduction of XAML allows application designers to more effectively contribute to the application development cycle. Using XAML to develop user interfaces also allows for separation of model and view, which is considered a good architectural principle. In XAML, elements and attributes map to classes and properties in
17000-764: The use of the ElementHost and WindowsFormsHost classes. To enable the use of WinForms, the developer executes this from their WPF C# code: WPF programs, via the P/Invoke feature of the CLR , can access native functionality such calling functions from Windows libraries . This allows the ability to communicate and operate other parts of the operating system, including unmanaged libraries . WPF supports Windows Ink for pen-based input , and multi-touch input on Windows 7 and above. It also supports Microsoft UI Automation to allow developers to create accessible interfaces, and to expose
17136-407: 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
17272-434: The visuals and structure of UI elements. A style is a combination of property settings that can be applied to a UI element with a single property attribute. For example, a "blue radio button " style could be created and then be reused on any number of radio button controls throughout the program. Styles can alter collections of properties of controls, but are not not intended for significant structural changes. Templates are
17408-654: 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
17544-528: 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
17680-438: 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
17816-468: 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
17952-480: Was officially ended in 2021. After becoming open source in 2018, WPF was forked for the project Avalonia , an open-source .NET cross-platform XAML-based UI framework, distributed under the MIT License . While WPF only is intended for Windows, Avalonia also supports builds for web (via WebAssembly ), MacOS , Android , iOS , and Linux . Avalonia's name references WPF's in-development codename ("Avalon"), and markets itself as "a spiritual successor to WPF". Avalonia
18088-684: 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
18224-587: 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
18360-425: 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
18496-571: 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
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