MICROSOFT

Establishment of Company

Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975, 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 Microsoft 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.

Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology company with headquarters in Redmond, Washington. It develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services. Its best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft Office suite, and the Internet Explorer and Edge Web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. As of 2016, it is the world's largest software maker by revenue, and one of the world's most valuable companies.

1972–1985: The founding of Microsoft

Childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen sought to make a business utilizing their shared skills in computer programming. In 1972 they founded their first company, named Traf-O-Data, which sold a rudimentary computer to track and analyze automobile traffic data. While Gates enrolled at Harvard, Allen pursued a degree in computer science at Washington State University, though he later dropped out of school to work at Honeywell.[18] The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics featured

Microsoft entered the operating system (OS) business in 1980 with its own version of Unix, called Xenix. However, it was MS-DOS that solidified the company's dominance. After negotiations with Digital Research failed, IBM awarded a contract to Microsoft in November 1980 to provide a version of the CP/M OS

Windows 1.0

Windows 1.0 is a graphical personal computer operating environment developed by Microsoft. Microsoft had worked with Apple Computer to develop applications for Apple's January 1984 original Macintosh, the first mass-produced personal computer with a graphical user interface (GUI) that enabled users to see user friendly icons on screen. Windows 1.0 was released on November 20, 1985, as the first version of the Microsoft Windows line.

Microsoft began developing a graphical user interface (GUI) in 1981. The development of Windows began after Microsoft founder Bill Gates saw a demonstration at COMDEX 1982 of VisiCorp's Visi On, a GUI software suite for IBM PC compatible computers.

Microsoft first presented Windows to the public on November 10, 1983. Requiring two floppy disk drives and 192 KB of RAM, Microsoft described the software as a device driver for MS-DOS 2.0. By supporting cooperative multitasking in tiled windows when using well-behaved applications that only used DOS system calls

Windows 1.01

Version 1.01, released on November 20, 1985, was the first public release of Windows 1.0

Windows 1.02

Version 1.02, released in May 1986, was an international release.

Windows 1.03

Version 1.03, released in August 1986, included enhancements that made it consistent with the international release like drivers for European keyboards and additional screen and printer drivers.

Windows 1.04

Version 1.04, released in April 1987, added support for the new IBM PS/2 computers, although no support for PS/2 mice or new VGA graphics modes was provided. However, in May 27 1987, an OEM version was released by IBM, which added VGA support, PS/2 mouse support, MCGA support, and support for the 8514/A display driver. IBM released this version on three 3.5 inch 720k floppies, and offered it as part of their "Personal Publishing System" and "Collegiate Kit" bundles.

Intelligent Cloud for India

Microsoft enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Microsoft set up its India operations in 1990. Microsoft in India offers its global cloud services from local data centers to accelerate digital transformation across Indian start-ups, businesses, and government agencies.

We believe the key to realizing the vision for India’s growth has cloud at its core. We partner with governments, as well as private and public institutions to develop cloud-based technological solutions to digitally transform every sector in India. We also have three data centers in India to fuel India’s inclusive growth, spur innovation, and accelerate digital transformation.

Trust & Security

Our Cyber Security Engagement Center, headquartered in Delhi, brings together our capabilities to foster deeper collaborations with public and private sector organizations, a critical enabler for India’s digital transformation. Microsoft’s approach to cybersecurity in today’s cloud-centric world rests on three core functional areas: protect, detect, and respond. To support a comprehensive, cross-company and cross-industry approach to cybersecurity, Microsoft invests more than a billion dollars a year in security research, innovation, and development.

How Microsoft computer scientists and researchers are working to ‘solve‘ cancer

t Microsoft’s research labs around the world, computer scientists, programmers, engineers and other experts are trying to crack some of the computer industry’s toughest problems, from system design and security to quantum computing and data visualization.

A subset of those scientists, engineers and programmers have a different goal: They’re trying to use computer science to solve one of the most complex and deadly challenges humans face: Cancer.

Two core computer science approaches

Although the individual projects vary widely, Microsoft’s overarching philosophy toward solving cancer focuses on two basic approaches, said Jeannette M. Wing, Microsoft’s corporate vice president in charge of the company’s basic research labs.

Organizing knowledge to find better treatment

The research teams’ efforts also come amid major breakthroughs in understanding the role genetics plays in both getting and treating cancer. That, in turn, is spurring an even stronger focus on treating each cancer case in a personalized way, sometimes called precision medicine.

How AI, drones and cameras are keeping our roads and bridges safe

Building bridges

Built more than 20 years ago, the Great Belt Bridge is a suspension bridge which connects the Danish islands of Zealand and Funen. Holding company Sund & Bælt, which is responsible for the maintenance of the bridge, has worked with Microsoft to deploy an innovative solution which combines the flexibility of drones, with the power of artificial intelligence (AI.)

The drones are used to fly around the bridge and capture thousands of pictures of the concrete structure – a method that’s far safer and faster than tasking a worker to dangle 200 metres above the surface to take pictures manually. The expertise and experience of these workers is instead used to help train a machine learning algorithm which can automatically detect cracks in the surface of the concrete, after the photos have been uploaded to Microsoft’s Azure cloud. After the AI creates a list of areas with cause for concern, the same experts are used to select the areas which need maintenance and repair.

Places you go

Privacy at Microsoft

Location information helps us give you directions to the places you want to go and show you information relevant to where you are. For this, we use the locations that you provide or that we’ve detected using technologies such as GPS or IP addresses.

Detecting locations also helps us protect you. For example, if you almost always sign in from Tokyo, and suddenly you’re signing in from London, we can check to make sure that it’s really you.

You can turn location services on or off for your device in Settings > Privacy > Location. From here, you can also choose which Microsoft Store apps have access to your location and manage the location history stored on your device.

To view and clear location data that's been associated with your Microsoft account, go to account.microsoft.com.

Microsoft Supported Employment: Program Overview

This is one video of a seven-part series that dives into the Microsoft Real Estate & Facilities Supported Employment Program. In this video you get an overview of the Supported Employment Program, why this program works, the value it brings to Microsoft and the community, and how we plan to have this program progress and grow.