in 2008, entering the personal computer production market for the first time in June 2012 with the launch of the Microsoft Surface line of tablet computers, and later forming Microsoft Mobile through the acquisition of Nokia's devices and services division. This unfolded with Microsoft acquiring Danger Inc. Steve Ballmer replaced Gates as CEO in 2000, and later envisioned a 'devices and services' strategy. The company also produces a wide range of other consumer and enterprise software for desktops, laptops, tabs, gadgets, and servers, including Internet search (with Bing), the digital services market (through MSN), mixed reality ( HoloLens), cloud computing ( Azure), and software development ( Visual Studio).

Īs of 2015, Microsoft is market-dominant in the IBM PC compatible operating system market and the office software suite market, although it has lost the majority of the overall operating system market to Android. Since the 1990s, it has increasingly diversified from the operating system market and has made a number of corporate acquisitions, their largest being the acquisition of LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in December 2016, followed by their acquisition of Skype Technologies for $8.5 billion in May 2011. 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. It rose to dominate the personal computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by Windows. Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. It is considered as one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet (parent company of Google), Amazon, Apple, and Meta (formerly Facebook).

14 in the 2022 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue it was the world's largest software maker by revenue as of 2022.

Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. Microsoft's best-known software products are the Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft Office suite, and the Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington.

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