Microsoft

1.1 Introduction

Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq ÐŽ§MSFTЎЁ), founded in 1975 by Bill Gate and Paul Allen, headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA, is the biggest worldwide leader in software, services and internet technologies for personal and business computing.

ÐŽ§Microcomputer softwareЎЁ is the brief definition to ÐŽ§MicrosoftЎЁ. It operates in wide range of industries like as computer hardware and software, publishing, research & development and Video games. To let it becomes a monopolistic corporation in the world. We can see their power that the annual revenue is running with US$44.28 billion and has 71,553 employees in 102 countries as of July 2006.

Microsoft is the strongest of providing computer software for computing devices; famous products are Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player. Each of them has achieved near-ubiquity in the desktop of personal computer market.

To be a monopolist who is in good using their market position to footholds in the filed to game console. In order to expand a step further of market networks. XBOX was grand launched to succeed the game entertainment market to share with Sony and Nintendo in 2001. XBOX is the important product to Microsoft

1.2 Microsoft Business History

Microsoft's name, originally bi-capitalized as MicroSoft or with hyphenation as Micro-Soft, is a portmanteau of "microcomputer software"and is often abbreviated informally as MS.

1975s The company was founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800

1980s Microsoft used its new position, which it gained in part due to a contract from IBM, to dominate the home computer operating system market with MS-DOS, which stood for Microsoft Disk Operating System.

2000s In Microsoft Windows, originally an add-on for MS-DOS, the company was selling what would become the most widely used operating system in the world;Microsoft continued to push into multiple markets, such as computer hardware and television.In addition, Microsoft has historically given customer support over Usenet newsgroups and the World Wide Web, and awards Microsoft MVP status to volunteers who are deemed helpful in assisting the company's customers.

2006s Microsoft has been convicted of monopolistic business practices ÐŽX the U.S. Justice Department, among others, has sued Microsoft for antitrust violations and software bundling.The slogan "embrace, extend, and extinguish" is often used to describe Microsoft's strategy for entering product categories involving widely-used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences to disadvantage its competitors.

1.3 Logos and slogans

In 1987, Microsoft adopted its current logo, the so-called "Pacman Logo" designed by Scott Baker. According to the March 1987 Computer Reseller News Magazine, "The new logo, in Helvetica italic typeface, has a slash between the o and s to emphasize the "soft" part of the name and convey motion and speed." Dave Norris, a Microsoft employee, ran an internal joke campaign to save the old logo, which was green, in all uppercase, and featured a fanciful letter O, nicknamed the blibbet, but it was discarded.

Microsoft's logo depicted here, with the "Your potential. Our passion." tagline below the main corporate name, is based on the slogan Microsoft had as of 2006. In 2002, the company started using the logo in the United States and eventually started a TV campaign with the slogan, changed from the previous tagline of "Where do you want to go today?." Like some of Microsoft's other actions, the slogan met its fair share of criticism. For example, in his ThirdWay Advertising Blog, David Vinjamuri states that while "This is gorgeous, touching advertising of the type that wins awards," he ends by noting that the slogan "Only reminds us what we don't like about the brand. Can it."

Microsoft sells computer games that run on Windows PCs, including titles such as Age of Empires, Halo and the Microsoft Flight Simulator series.

It produces a line of reference works that include encyclopedias and atlases, under the name Encarta. Microsoft Zone hosts free premium and retail games where players can compete against each other and in tournaments. Microsoft entered the multi-billion-dollar game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo in late 2001, with the release of the Xbox.

The company develops and publishes its own video games for this console, with the help of its Microsoft Game Studios subsidiary, in addition to third-party Xbox video game publishers such as Electronic Arts and Activision, who pay a license fee to publish games for the system.

The Xbox also has a successor in the Xbox 360, released on 2005-11-22 in North America and other countries. With the Xbox 360, Microsoft hopes to compensate for the losses incurred with the original Xbox.

However, Microsoft made some decisions considered controversial in the video gaming community, such as selling two different versions of the system, as well as providing backward compatibility with only particular Xbox titles.

Microsoft has attempted to expand the Windows brand into many other markets, with products such as Windows CE for PDAs and its "Windows-powered" Smartphone products.

Microsoft initially entered the mobile