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Microsoft history
Microsoft company history timeline
Their revenues for 1975 totalled $16,000.
It was registered in New Mexico in 1976 after being formed the year before by two childhood friends.
In August 1977, less than a year later, the company opened its first international office.
That same year Microsoft released its second programming language, Microsoft FORTRAN, which was followed in 1978 by a version of COBOL. Both were written for the CP/M operating system, one of many available in the rapidly expanding but still unstandardized microcomputer market.
By the end of 1978 Microsoft had 13 employees, a sales subsidiary in Japan, and $1 million in revenues.
Originally based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Microsoft relocated to Washington State in 1979 and eventually grew into a major multinational technology corporation.
In 1979, the company moved to Bellevue, Washington, and two years later it incorporated under the name Microsoft Inc.
The year 1980 also saw the arrival of Steve Ballmer, a close friend of Gates from Harvard, who was hired to organize the non-technical side of the business.
Microsoft entered the operating system (OS) business in 1980 with its own version of Unix called Xenix, but it was MS-DOS that solidified the company's dominance.
1981: Microsoft, Inc. is incorporated; IBM uses Microsoft's 16-bit operating system for its first personal computer.
1982: Microsoft, U.K., Ltd. is incorporated.
In 1983, Allen departed Microsoft after being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma; he was successfully treated for the disease and went on to pursue a variety of other business ventures.
Also in 1983 Microsoft launched a word processing program, Word 1.0, in an effort to supplant the category leader, WordStar.
1983: Paul Allen resigns as executive vice-president but remains on the board; Jon Shirley is made president of Microsoft (he later becomes CEO); Microsoft introduces the Microsoft Mouse and Word for MS-DOS 1.00.
The company expanded into new markets with the release of the Microsoft Mouse in 1983, as well as with a publishing division named Microsoft Press.
Microsoft worked closely with Apple during the development of Apple's Macintosh computer, which was introduced in 1984.
Microsoft released Microsoft Windows on November 20, 1985, as a graphical extension for MS-DOS, despite having begun jointly developing OS/2 with IBM the previous August.
Microsoft dramatically expanded its electronic publishing division, created in 1985 and already notable for the success of its multimedia encyclopaedia, Encarta.
In 1985 Microsoft also introduced Excel 1.0, a Mac spreadsheet product.
In March 1986 Microsoft held an initial public offering (IPO) of 2.5 million shares which raised $61 million.
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Company Name  | Founded Date | Revenue | Employee Size | Job Openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IBM | 1911 | $60.5B | 270,000 | 1,888 |
| Adobe | 1982 | $17.6B | 11,847 | 601 |
| Dell | 1984 | $102.3B | 165,000 | 146 |
| 1998 | $282.8B | 139,995 | 4,221 | |
| VMware | 1998 | $13.4B | 31,000 | 3 |
| Intel | 1968 | $54.2B | 121,100 | 1,245 |
| NVIDIA | 1993 | $27.0B | 18,100 | 627 |
| Box | 2005 | $990.9M | 1,934 | 52 |
| Sophos | 1996 | $47.6M | 3,600 | 29 |
| Amd | 1969 | $23.6B | 15,500 | 347 |
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Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of Microsoft, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about Microsoft. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at Microsoft. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by Microsoft. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of Microsoft and its employees or that of Zippia.
Microsoft may also be known as or be related to MICROSOFT CORP, Microsoft, Microsoft Corporation and Microsoft Romania SRL.