In 2020, ProPublica reported that the company had diverted more than $39 billion in U.S. profits to Puerto Rico using a mechanism structured to make it seem as if the company was unprofitable on paper. As reported by several news outlets, an Irish subsidiary of Microsoft based in the Republic of Ireland declared £220 bn in profits but paid no corporation tax for the year 2020. This characterization is derived from the perception that Microsoft provides nearly everything for its employees in a convenient place, but in turn overworks them to a point where it would be bad for their (possibly long-term) health.
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 a new advanced AI research team. In June 2023, Microsoft released Azure Quantum Elements to run molecular simulations and calculations in computational chemistry and materials science using a combination of AI, high-performance computing and quantum computing. On January 23, 2023, Microsoft announced a new multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment deal with ChatGPT developer OpenAI.

1994: Windows and Office

In June 2024, Microsoft faced a potential EU fine after regulators accused it of abusing market power by bundling its Teams video-conferencing app with its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 software. This is due to the company being tax resident in Bermuda as mentioned in the accounts for ‘Microsoft Round Island One, a subsidiary that collects license fees from the use of Microsoft software worldwide. The company is often referred to as a “Velvet Sweatshop”, a term which originated in a 1989 Seattle Times article, and later became used to describe the company by some of Microsoft’s own employees. Historically, Microsoft has also been accused of overworking employees, in many cases, leading to burnout within just a few years of joining the company.
The company is expected to report revenue of $80.31 billion for its fiscal second quarter, up 15% year-over-year, with a 27% jump in Intelligent Cloud revenue to $32.39 billion. Amid lingering worries about the company’s AI spending, investors will likely be eager to hear what executives have to say about capital expenditures, along with projections for the “Intelligent Cloud” segment, which includes Azure. The shares are down about 11% from when Microsoft last reported results in October, when the company topped estimates but said it would significantly boost its investments in AI infrastructure.

2011: Microsoft Azure, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Microsoft Stores

Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the rise of personal computers through software like Windows, and has since expanded to Internet services, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, video gaming, and other fields. Microsoft invited developers on Monday to start using Maia’s control software, but it’s not clear when users of the company’s Azure cloud service will be able to utilize servers running on the chip. According to the complaint and media reports, Microsoft’s cloud services may have been used to store or process surveillance-related data. The probe scrutinized Microsoft’s bundling of cloud services with products like Office and security tools, as well as its growing AI presence through its partnership with OpenAI. The program authorizes the government to secretly access data of non-US citizens hosted by American companies without a warrant.

  • During the 41 years from 1980 to 2021 Microsoft released 9 versions of MS-DOS with a median frequency of 2 years, and 13 versions of Windows with a median frequency of 3 years.
  • It created one of the world’s largest private bus systems, the “Connector”, to transport people from outside the company; for on-campus transportation, the “Shuttle Connect” uses a large fleet of hybrid cars to save fuel.
  • It has been criticized for its monopolistic practices, and the company’s software received criticism for problems with ease of use, robustness, and security.
  • In July 2025, Microsoft announced another round of layoffs, cutting approximately 9,000 employees in its largest workforce reduction in over two years.
  • To cope with the potential for an increase in demand for products and services, Microsoft opened a number of “holiday stores” across the U.S. to complement the increasing number of “bricks-and-mortar” Microsoft Stores that opened in 2012.

The company has a history of antitrust battles in the U.S. and Europe, with over €2 billion in EU fines previously imposed for similar abuses. In 2020, Salesforce, the manufacturer of the Slack platform, complained to European regulators about Microsoft due to the integration of the Teams service into Office 365. Internal Revenue Service was alleging that the company owed the U.S. $28.9 billion in past taxes, plus penalties related to mis-allocation of corporate profits over a decade.

  • More recently, it has been criticized for its role in providing services to Israel during the Gaza war.
  • In 2020, ProPublica reported that the company had diverted more than $39 billion in U.S. profits to Puerto Rico using a mechanism structured to make it seem as if the company was unprofitable on paper.
  • ET, Microsoft said that it had found that “a portion of service infrastructure in North America” was not handling traffic correctly and that it was trying to fix the problem.
  • Microsoft stated that the underlying cause had been fixed but acknowledged ongoing residual impacts on some Microsoft 365 apps and services.
  • Under Nadella’s direction, the company has expanded its video gaming business to support the Xbox brand, establishing the Microsoft Gaming division in 2022 and the acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion in 2023.
  • Following media reports about PRISM, NSA’s massive electronic surveillance program, in May 2013, several technology companies were identified as participants, including Microsoft.

In April 2016, the company sued the U.S. government, argued that secrecy orders were preventing the company from disclosing warrants to customers in violation of the company’s and customers’ rights. Following media reports about PRISM, NSA’s massive electronic surveillance program, in May 2013, several technology companies were identified as participants, including Microsoft. A Microsoft spokesperson stated that the corporation runs several programs that facilitate the sharing of such information with the U.S. government. In July 2025, Microsoft announced another round of layoffs, cutting approximately 9,000 employees in its largest workforce reduction in over two years. In November 2018, the company won a $480 million military contract with the U.S. government to bring augmented reality (AR) headset technology into the weapon repertoires of American soldiers. On November 14, 2014, Microsoft overtook ExxonMobil to become the second most-valuable company by market capitalization, behind only Apple Inc.

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In April 2018, Microsoft released the source code for Windows File Manager under the MIT License to celebrate the program’s 20th anniversary. On January 12, Microsoft released PowerShell Core 6.0 for the macOS and Linux operating systems. In May 2016, the company announced it was laying off 1,850 workers, and taking an impairment and restructuring charge of $950 million.

Industry Products

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. Microsoft moved its headquarters from Bellevue to Redmond, Washington, on February 26, 1986, and went public with an initial public offering (IPO) at the NASDAQ exchange on March 13, with the resulting rise in stock making an estimated four billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees. 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 entered the operating system (OS) business in 1980 with its own version of Unix, licensed from AT&T Corporation a year before, called Xenix, but it was MS-DOS that solidified the company’s dominance. More recently, it has been criticized for its role in providing services to Israel during the Gaza war.

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On June 4, 2018, Microsoft officially announced the acquisition of GitHub for $7.5 billion, a deal that closed on October 26, 2018. The project is dubbed “Azure Government” and has ties to the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) surveillance program. In March the company https://www.mrsloty.uk/ also established guidelines that censor users of Office 365 from using profanity in private documents. In March 2018, Microsoft recalled Windows 10 S to change it to a mode for the Windows operating system rather than a separate and unique operating system.

Here’s How Much Traders Expect Microsoft Stock to Move After Earnings

The announcement came with confusion after Microsoft announced Windows 10 would be the last version of the operating system. The increased necessity for remote work and distance education drove demand for cloud computing and grew the company’s gaming sales. 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. In February 2019, hundreds of Microsoft employees protested the company’s war profiteering from a $480 million contract to develop virtual reality headsets for the United States Army. On February 20, 2019, Microsoft said it would 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 the political space from hacking.
Bill Gates claims the cap on H1B visas makes it difficult to hire employees for the company, stating “I’d certainly get rid of the H1B cap” in 2005. Another community site that provides daily videocasts and other services, On10.net, launched on March 3, 2006. MSDN also offers subscriptions for companies and individuals, and the more expensive subscriptions usually offer access to pre-release beta versions of Microsoft software.
The company had restructured operations in Russia after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, but those restructuring efforts had failed. On February 28, 2025, Microsoft announced that Skype would be shutting down on May 5, 2025, to streamline its focus on Microsoft Teams. Microsoft also announced relaunch of its controversial tool, Recall, in November 2024 after addressing privacy concerns. The outage was traced back to a flawed update of CrowdStrike’s cybersecurity software, which resulted in Microsoft systems crashing and causing disruptions across various sectors. In July 2024, it was reported that the company was laying off its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) team.
As of January 2014, Microsoft’s market capitalization stood at $314B, making it the 8th-largest company in the world by market capitalization. Consequently, in February 2011 Microsoft released a corporate bond amounting to $2.25 billion with relatively low borrowing rates compared to government bonds. In April 2019, Microsoft became the third U.S. public company to be valued at over $1 trillion.b As of 2024update, Microsoft has the third-highest global brand valuation. In 2018, Microsoft became the most valuable publicly traded company in the world, a position it has repeatedly traded with Apple in the years since.
In June 2022, Microsoft published the report on Russian cyber attacks and concluded that state-backed Russian hackers “have engaged in “strategic espionage” against governments, think tanks, businesses and aid groups” in 42 countries supporting Kyiv. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, announced that it had donated an initial batch of supplies, including 15,000 protection goggles, infrared thermometers, medical caps, and protective suits, to healthcare workers in Seattle, with further aid to come. The company was the official jersey sponsor of Finland’s national basketball team at EuroBasket 2015, a major sponsor of the Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT (2017–2020) and a sponsor of the Renault F1 Team (2016–2020). On August 23, 2012, Microsoft unveiled a new corporate logo at the opening of its 23rd Microsoft store in Boston, indicating the company’s shift of focus from the classic style to the tile-centric modern interface, which it uses/will use on the Windows Phone platform, Xbox 360, Windows 8 and the upcoming Office Suites.