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Microsoft [] is the world-wide largest software producer with head office in talking moon, a suburb of Seattle (US Federal State Washington). The enterprise was created 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. The name "Microsoft "stands for Microcomputer software and for the first time on 29 November 1975 by Bill Gates in a letter at Paul Allen was used. On 6 January 1976 "Microsoft became "a registered trade mark. Present CEO is Steve Ballmer.
At initial successes with a BASIC interpreter to the company with their MS-DOS for the IBM-PC the break-through succeeded to 1981 operating system appeared for the first time at the market leader for operating systems on PC basis as well as in the consequence for Office products and other applications, a position, which held it until today under Microsoft Windows.
Microsoft applies for fund managers, Medienkommentatoren and government-independent organizations after an inquiry of the Financial Time of 2003 among 1.000 executive committees and managing directors as well as unites after General Electric as the secondarymost important enterprise of the world. The restaurant magazine Capital Microsoft Germany GmbH after a collection in the year 2005 for the third time in consequence as "a best employer ". Already in the year 2002 Microsoft had been of the European commission as best employers in Germany. However this institution imposed numerous penalties since 2004 against Microsoft because of injury of competition laws and for the company under menace of further punishments editions regarding the disclosure of source code and the decoupling of products made.
The enterprise is on the other hand in addition, again and again in the cross fire of the criticism guessed/advised. The most important points of criticism are
To the first three points of criticism were and are also at present again and again numerous processes pending. The displeasure over this and also the discontent with frequently the quality of the products left behind the state of the art contributed substantially to the emergence of one "open SOURCE "- movement, which understands itself not least as alternative to Microsoft.
Almost all successful worm and virus attacks are directed against Microsoft products. The manufacturer attributes this to the spreading of his products, others speaks of unsatisfactory safety consciousness. In order to advance toward the criticism, Bill Gates's explained security as the top-priority case (Trustworthy Computing). Most safety mechanisms of today's operating systems (v. A. user management) are available actually also under modern Windows versions, by the users however are not used, since these do not know them or use software, which prevents its use or makes more difficult (e.g. Adobe Photoshop). Microsoft is accused in this connection not to fight such software aggressively enough and not to clear the users up sufficient.
By the dominating the market position of Microsoft on the Desktop market and by the large influence of the computer technology generally also a large influence within ranges is to be determined as for instance the job market or the German language. Thus for example nowadays Microsoft certificates (among other things MCP, MCSE) are considered as one of the main requirements in the employment market of the IT-industry.
| Year | Employee | Conversion in millions US-$ |
|---|---|---|
| 1980 | 40 | 8 |
| 1981 | 125 | 16 |
| 1982 | 200 | 32 |
| 1983 | 383 | 69 |
| 1984 | 608 | 125 |
| 1985 | 910 | 140 |
| 1986 | 1.200 | 197 |
| 1987 | 2.000 | 300 |
| 1988 | 2.800 | 590 |
| 1989 | 3900 | 804 |
| 1990 | 5.200 | 1.186 |
| 1991 | 11700 | 1.847 |
| 1992 | 15300 | 2.777 |
| 1993 | 16500 | 3.786 |
| 1994 | 20900 | 4.714 |
| 1995 | 17.800 | 6.075 |
| 1996 | 20.600 | 9.050 |
| 1997 | 22.200 | 11.936 |
| 1998 | 27.100 | 15.262 |
| 1999 | 31.400 | 19.747 |
| 2000 | 39.100 | 22.956 |
| 2001 | 47.600 | 25.296 |
| 2002 | 50.500 | 28.365 |
| 2003 | 55.000 | 32.187 |
| 2004 | 57.000 | 36.835 |
| 2005 | 59.947 | 39.778 |
Microsoft divides into the sieved core Business unit Windows Client, information Worker, Microsoft Business Solutions, server and Tools, mobile and Embedded DEVICE, MSN and Home and Entertainment:
Windows Client in the division Windows Client fall the Microsoft operating systems Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Embedded. On 96 % of all again sold PCs an operating system of Microsoft is installed. Microsoft offers unusually favorable conditions to large manufacturers for OEM software so mentioned, if these obligate itself to deliver no Desktop computers without an operating system of Microsoft. The high market share with operating systems is the basis of the Microsoft monopoly and the high spreading of the Internet Explorers as well as the Windows Media Players, because these two programs are provided according to standard with the Windows operating systems. 85,5 % source, according to other statistics in addition, clearly less (~ 60 - 70%), all Internet user surfen with the Internet Explorer by the Web. For approximately one year this value sinks however continuously. The cause of this trend is the increasing spreading free and technically far developed Browser, e.g. Mozilla Firefox.Information Worker over the section information Worker all application programs ("alone desktop applications ") is developed and driven out. In addition also the programs of the Microsoft Office family Microsoft Word, Microsoft Powerpoint, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Outlook belong. Also the wide-spread Internet Explorer and the Windows Media Player belong into "the information Worker "- section Microsoft Business Solutions this section exclusively addresses itself to enterprises. It offers software for the finance management, Supply chain management, Customer Relationship management and E-Business. Server and Tools in the section server and Tools drives Microsoft its server products out (among other things Windows server, SQL server, IIS server). Also the Windows Entwicklungswerkzeuge (e.g. Visual Studio), with whose assistance programmers write new software, are driven out over this division. Beyond that services are offered such as training courses and consultation for customers and developers. The relationship with the developers is particularly important thereby because the number of developers along-decides on the success of the Windows platform. Mobile and Embedded DEVICE this division develops operating systems and application programs for mobile devices such as PDAs, Smartphones and mobile telephones. For years Microsoft tries to gain a foothold over this section on the portable radio market. But by Nokia and the high market share of its Symbian operating system for mobile phones this is not so far succeeded .MSN in the MSN (Microsoft network) Microsoft its Internet activities bundled. In addition among other things the E-Mail service of the world Hotmail largest with 170 million users belongs. In the comparison to it appear rather small the two largest German E-Mail offerers GMX and Web.de with 18 and/or 16 million users (in the year 2004). In addition to MSN the MSN portal, that belongs mainly to the bundling of different Internet services like e.g. E-Mail, Instant Messaging, Internet search and information offers serves and for the usually frequented sides belonged in the Web. Home and Entertainment Home and Entertainment contains different computer games and the play console Xbox. "Observers estimate that Microsoft makes with each sold Xbox a loss of 100 US Dollar ". Microsoft sells the Xbox with losses and tries the loss by the sales from Xbox plays to to compensate. This strategy had so far however little success, which led to the fact that the entire section writes red numbers (over 1 billion $ per year). Beside computer games and the Xbox in this section also the encyclopedia Microsoft Encarta is driven out.We found here 116 articles.
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