Microsoft Corporation (MS) is a US multinational technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington. It develops, manufactures, licenses, maintains and sells computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers and related services. The most popular software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft Office suite, and Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Its leading hardware products are the Xbox gaming console and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. Since 2016, it is the world’s largest revenue-generating software company and one of the most valuable companies in the world. The word “Microsoft” means “microcomputer” and “software”. Microsoft ranks 30th in the Fortune 500 ranking for the largest US corporations in terms of revenue.

Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975 to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. It grew until the mid-1980s, when it dominated the market for PC operating systems with MS-DOS, and then Microsoft Windows, the company’s initial public offering since 1986 and the subsequent increase in the price of its shares created three billionaires and about 12,000 millionaires among Microsoft employees. Since the 1990s, it has increasingly diversified from the operating system market and makes a number of corporate acquisitions, the largest of which is the acquisition of LinkedIn in the amount of $26.2 billion in December 2016.

Since October 2018, the latest version of Windows for PCs, tablets, smartphones and embedded devices is Windows 10. The latest versions for server are Windows Server 2019. A specialized version of Windows runs on the Xbox One game console.

Each family serves a specific computer industry. Active Windows families include Windows NT and Windows Embedded; they may include subfamilies, such as Windows Embedded Compact (Windows CE) or Windows Server. Defunct Windows families include Windows 9x, Windows Mobile and Windows Phone.

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