NEAR EAST UNIVERSITY

Faculty of Engineering
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Microsoft
MAN402

Muhammad Abid Khan 20124734

Nicosia 2015

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................... 1
HISTORY...................................................................................................................... 2
197284: Founding and company beginnings.......................................................................2
198494: Windows and Office......................................................................................... 3
19952007: Internet and the 32-bit era...............................................................................4
200711: Windows Vista, mobile, and Windows 7.................................................................5
2011present: Rebranding, Windows 8, Surface and Nokia devices............................................6
Products........................................................................................................................ 8
Windows.................................................................................................................... 8
Office........................................................................................................................ 9
Microsoft Silverlight..................................................................................................... 9
Organizational Structure.................................................................................................. 10
Departments................................................................................................................. 11
Income Statement.......................................................................................................... 12
Balance Sheet............................................................................................................... 13
Conclusion................................................................................................................... 14

INTRODUCTION
Microsoft Corporation is a software company based in Redmond, Washington. Microsoft's
flagship product, the Windows operating system, is the single most popular operating system for
home desktop use. Its other desktop products, namely Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, and
Windows Media Player, are either bundled directly with the Windows operating system, or are
often sold together with Windows as preinstalled software on new computer systems.
Additionally, the company manufactures and sells computer hardware such as keyboards and
mice, and owns or possesses interest in several content-distribution channels such as MSNBC,
the MSN Internet portal, and the Microsoft Encarta electronic encyclopedia.
The Microsoft Windows operating system started life as an optional addition to the MS-DOS
operating system. The idea of a graphical user interface was pioneered by Apple Computers
Apple II and Macintosh. However, due to prior work with IBM, Microsoft successfully
convinced the hardware giant to ship Microsoft Windows preinstalled on IBM personal
computers. This monumental step had piggybacked Windows to be one of the most recognized
software titles in history. The Microsoft Office suite of applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint,
and Access) began life as Microsoft Works, an Apple Macintosh application that provided the
functions of a word processor, spreadsheet, and database all in one. Microsoft's popular Internet
Explorer web browser was originally a rebranded version of Spyglass Mosaic.
Microsoft has just released the new Office suite for Windows. Getting those documents to friends
via the Internet is easy. Try a pdf converter such as converting pdf to doc or even converting pdf
to excel so that the PDFs can be edited again.
Microsoft products have traditionally been plagued with security problems, leading to an
entire malicious software industry today. Although all major operating systems and computer
programs have been subject to attack at one time or another, Microsoft's latency at resolving
issues, and the simple number of them, has tarnished the company's image. Microsoft has a
policy of releasing patches to its software on the second Tuesday of every month via Microsoft
Update, with no more than 10 major changes to its products at those times. Thus, exploits that
are discovered around mid-month are not corrected for at least four weeks, and in many cases
eight or twelve weeks can go by before a patch is released for a security issue. Microsoft
Corporation has promised that its new Windows Vista operating system will be more secure than
previous offerings such as Windows XP, however the ten patches a month policy has not been
changed.

HISTORY
197284: Founding and company beginnings
Paul Allen (l.) and Bill Gates (r.) on October 19, 1981, in a sea of PCs after signing a pivotal
contract. IBM called Microsoft in July 1980 inquiring about programming languages for its
upcoming PC line after failed negotiations with another company, IBM gave Microsoft a contract
to develop the OS for the new line of PCs.
Paul Allen and Bill Gates, childhood friends with a passion for computer programming, sought to
make a successful business utilizing their shared skills.[citation needed] In 1972 they founded
their first company, named Traf-O-Data, which offered a rudimentary computer that tracked and
analyzed automobile traffic data. Allen went on to pursue a degree in computer science at
Washington State University, later dropping out of school to work at Honeywell. Gates began
studies at Harvard.[14] The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics, which Allen bought at
Out of Town News, featured Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems's (MITS) Altair 8800
microcomputer.[15] Allen suggested that they could program a BASIC interpreter for the device;
after a call from Gates claiming to have a working interpreter, MITS requested a demonstration.
Since they didn't actually have one, Allen worked on a simulator for the Altair while Gates
developed the interpreter. Although they developed the interpreter on a simulator and not the
actual device, the interpreter worked flawlessly when they demonstrated the interpreter to MITS
in Albuquerque, New Mexico in March 1975; MITS agreed to distribute it, marketing it as Altair
BASIC.[12]:108, 112114 They officially established Microsoft on April 4, 1975, with Gates as
the CEO.[16] Allen came up with the original name of "Micro-Soft," as recounted in a 1995
Fortune magazine article.[17][18] In August 1977 the company formed an agreement with ASCII
Magazine in Japan, resulting in its first international office, "ASCII Microsoft".[19] The
company moved to a new home in Bellevue, Washington in January 1979.[16]

Microsoft entered the OS business in 1980 with its own version of Unix, called Xenix.[20]
However, it was MS-DOS that solidified the company's dominance. After negotiations with
Digital Research failed, IBM awarded a contract to Microsoft in November 1980 to provide a
version of the CP/M OS, which was set to be used in the upcoming IBM Personal Computer
(IBM PC).[21] For this deal, Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called 86-DOS from Seattle
Computer Products, branding it as MS-DOS, which IBM rebranded to PC DOS. Following the
release of the IBM PC in August 1981, Microsoft retained ownership of MS-DOS. Since IBM
copyrighted the IBM PC BIOS, other companies had to reverse engineer it in order for non-IBM
hardware to run as IBM PC compatibles, but no such restriction applied to the operating systems.
Due to various factors, such as MS-DOS's available software selection, Microsoft eventually
became the leading PC operating systems vendor.[13][22]:210 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.[12]:232 Paul Allen resigned from Microsoft in 1983 after developing
Hodgkin's disease.

198494: Windows and Office

Windows 1.0 was released on November 20, 1985 as the first version of the Microsoft Windows
line.

Windows Timeline
While jointly developing a new OS with IBM in 1984, OS/2, Microsoft released Microsoft
Windows, a graphical extension for MS-DOS, on November 20, 1985.[12]:242243, 246
Microsoft moved its headquarters to Redmond on February 26, 1986, and on March 13 the
company went public;[23] the ensuing rise in the stock would make an estimated four
billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees.[24] Due to the partnership with
IBM, in 1990 the Federal Trade Commission set its eye on Microsoft for possible collusion; it
marked the beginning of over a decade of legal clashes with the U.S. Government.[25] Microsoft
released its version of OS/2 to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) on April 2, 1987;
[12]:243244 meanwhile, the company was at work on a 32-bit OS, Microsoft Windows NT,
using ideas from OS/2; it shipped on July 21, 1993, with a new modular kernel and the Win32
application programming interface (API), making porting from 16-bit (MS-DOS-based)
Windows easier. Once Microsoft informed IBM of NT, the OS/2 partnership deteriorated.[26]

In 1990, Microsoft introduced its office suite, Microsoft Office. The software bundled separate
office productivity applications, such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.[12]:301 On May
22 Microsoft launched Windows 3.0 with a streamlined user interface graphics and improved
protected mode capability for the Intel 386 processor.[27] Both Office and Windows became
dominant in their respective areas.[28][29] Novell, a Word competitor from 19841986, filed a
lawsuit years later claiming that Microsoft left part of its APIs undocumented in order to gain a
competitive advantage.[30]

On July 27, 1994, the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division filed a Competitive Impact
Statement that said, in part: "Beginning in 1988, and continuing until July 15, 1994, Microsoft
induced many OEMs to execute anti-competitive "per processor" licenses. Under a per processor
license, an OEM pays Microsoft a royalty for each computer it sells containing a particular
microprocessor, whether the OEM sells the computer with a Microsoft operating system or a
non-Microsoft operating system. In effect, the royalty payment to Microsoft when no Microsoft
product is being used acts as a penalty, or tax, on the OEM's use of a competing PC operating
system. Since 1988, Microsoft's use of per processor licenses has increased."[31]

19952007: Internet and the 32-bit era

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Bill Gates giving his deposition in 1998 for the United States v. Microsoft trial.[25]
Following Bill Gates's internal "Internet Tidal Wave memo" on May 26, 1995, Microsoft began
to redefine its offerings and expand its product line into computer networking and the World
Wide Web.[32] The company released Windows 95 on August 24, 1995, featuring pre-emptive
multitasking, a completely new user interface with a novel start button, and 32-bit compatibility;
similar to NT, it provided the Win32 API.[33][34]:20 Windows 95 came bundled with the online
service MSN (which was originally planned to be a competitor to the Internet), and for OEMs
Internet Explorer, a web browser. Internet Explorer was not bundled with the retail Windows 95
boxes because the boxes were printed before the team finished the web browser, and instead was
included in the Windows 95 Plus! pack.[35] Branching out into new markets in 1996, Microsoft
and NBC Universal created a new 24/7 cable news station, MSNBC.[36] Microsoft created
Windows CE 1.0, a new OS designed for devices with low memory and other constraints, such
as personal digital assistants.[37] In October 1997, the Justice Department filed a motion in the
Federal District Court, stating that Microsoft violated an agreement signed in 1994 and asked the
court to stop the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows.[12]:323324

In 1996, Microsoft released Windows CE, a version of the operating system meant for personal
digital assistants and other tiny computers.
Bill Gates handed over the CEO position on January 13, 2000, to Steve Ballmer, an old college
friend of Gates and employee of the company since 1980, creating a new position for himself as
Chief Software Architect.[12]:111, 228[16] Various companies including Microsoft formed the
Trusted Computing Platform Alliance in October 1999 to, among other things, increase security
and protect intellectual property through identifying changes in hardware and software. Critics
decry the alliance as a way to enforce indiscriminate restrictions over how consumers use
software, and over how computers behave, a form of digital rights management; for example the
scenario where a computer is not only secured for its owner, but also secured against its owner as
well.[38][39] On April 3, 2000, a judgment was handed down in the case of United States v.
Microsoft,[40] calling the company an "abusive monopoly";[41] it settled with the U.S.
Department of Justice in 2004.[23] On October 25, 2001, Microsoft released Windows XP,
unifying the mainstream and NT lines under the NT codebase.[42] The company released the
Xbox later that year, entering the game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo.[43] In
March 2004 the European Union brought antitrust legal action against the company, citing it
abused its dominance with the Windows OS, resulting in a judgment of 497 million ($613
million) and to produce new versions of Windows XP without Windows Media Player, Windows
XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N.[44][45]

200711: Windows Vista, mobile, and Windows 7

CEO Steve Ballmer at the MIX event in 2008. In an interview about his management style in
2005, he mentioned that his first priority was to get the people he delegates to in order. Ballmer
4

also emphasized the need to continue pursuing new technologies even if initial attempts fail,
citing the original attempts with Windows as an example.[46]
Released in January 2007, the next version of Windows, Windows Vista, focused on features,
security, and a redesigned user interface dubbed Aero.[47][48] Microsoft Office 2007, released at
the same time, featured a "Ribbon" user interface which was a significant departure from its
predecessors. Relatively strong sales of both titles helped to produce a record profit in 2007.[49]
The European Union imposed another fine of 899 million ($1.4 billion) for Microsoft's lack of
compliance with the March 2004 judgment on February 27, 2008, saying that the company
charged rivals unreasonable prices for key information about its workgroup and backoffice
servers. Microsoft stated that it was in compliance and that "these fines are about the past issues
that have been resolved".[50]

2007 also saw the creation of a multi-core unit at Microsoft, as they followed in the steps of
server companies such as Sun and IBM.[51]

Bill Gates retired from his role as Chief Software Architect on June 27, 2008, while retaining
other positions related to the company in addition to being an advisor for the company on key
projects.[52] Azure Services Platform, the company's entry into the cloud computing market for
Windows, launched on October 27, 2008.[53] On February 12, 2009, Microsoft announced its
intent to open a chain of Microsoft-branded retail stores, and on October 22, 2009, the first retail
Microsoft Store opened in Scottsdale, Arizona; the same day the first store opened, Windows 7
was officially released to the public. Windows 7's focus was on refining Vista with ease of use
features and performance enhancements, rather than a large reworking of Windows.[54][55][56]

As the smartphone industry boomed beginning in 2007, Microsoft struggled to keep up with its
rivals Apple and Google in providing a modern smartphone operating system. As a result, in
2010, Microsoft revamped their aging flagship mobile operating system, Windows Mobile,
replacing it with the new Windows Phone OS; along with a new strategy in the smartphone
industry that has Microsoft working more closely with smartphone manufacturers, such as
Nokia, and to provide a consistent user experience across all smartphones using Microsoft's
Windows Phone OS. It used a new user interface design language, codenamed "Metro", which
prominently used simple shapes, typography and iconography, and the concept of minimalism.

Microsoft is a founding member of the Open Networking Foundation started on March 23, 2011.
Other founding companies include Google, HP Networking, Yahoo, Verizon, Deutsche Telekom
and 17 other companies. The nonprofit organization is focused on providing support for a new
cloud computing initiative called Software-Defined Networking.[57] The initiative is meant to
speed innovation through simple software changes in telecommunications networks, wireless
networks, data centers and other networking areas.[58]

2011present: Rebranding, Windows 8, Surface and Nokia devices

Start screen on Windows 8.1
Surface Pro 3, part of the Surface series of laplets by Microsoft
Following the release of Windows Phone, Microsoft underwent a gradual rebranding of its
product range throughout 2011 and 2012the corporation's logos, products, services, and
websites adopted the principles and concepts of the Metro design language.[59] Microsoft
previewed Windows 8, an operating system designed to power both personal computers and
tablet computers, in Taipei in June 2011. A developer preview was released on September 13,
and was replaced by a consumer preview on February 29, 2012. On May 31, 2012, the preview
version was released.

On June 18, 2012, Microsoft unveiled the Surface, the first computer in the company's history to
have its hardware made by Microsoft. On June 25, Microsoft paid US $1.2 billion to buy the
social network Yammer. On July 31, 2012, Microsoft launched the Outlook.com webmail service
to compete with Gmail. On September 4, 2012, Microsoft released Windows Server 2012.

In July 2012, Microsoft sold its 50% stake in MSNBC.com, which it had run as a joint venture
with NBC since 1996. On October 1, Microsoft announced its intention to launch a news
operation, part of a new-look MSN, at the time of the Windows 8 launch that was later in the
month. On October 26, 2012, Microsoft launched Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface. Three
days later, Windows Phone 8 was launched. 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.

On March 29, 2013, Microsoft launched a Patent Tracker. The Kinect, the motion sensing input
devices by Microsoft, which was first introduced in November 2010 was upgraded for the 2013
release of the eighth-generation Xbox One. Its capabilities were revealed in May 2013. The new
Kinect uses an ultra-wide 1080p camera, it can function in the dark due to an infrared sensor, it
employs higher-end processing power and new software, it can distinguish between fine
movements (such as a thumb movements), and the device can determine a user's heart rate by
looking at his/her face. Microsoft filed a patent application in 2011 that suggests that the
corporation may use the Kinect camera system to monitor the behavior of television viewers as
part of a plan to make the viewing experience more active. On July 19, 2013, Microsoft stocks
6

suffered its biggest one-day percentage sell-off since the year 2000 after its fourth-quarter report
raised concerns among the investors on the poor showings of both Windows 8 and the Surface
tablet; with more than 11 percentage points declining Microsoft suffered a loss of more than
US$32 billion. For the 2010 fiscal year, Microsoft had five product divisions: Windows Division,
Server and Tools, Online Services Division, Microsoft Business Division, and Entertainment and
Devices Division.
John W. Thompson has been appointed the chairman of Microsoft, taking over from Bill Gates.
On September 3, 2013, Microsoft agreed to buy Nokia's mobile unit for $7 billion. Also in 2013,
Amy Hood became the CFO of Microsoft.The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) was
launched in October 2013 and Microsoft is part of the coalition of public and private
organizations that also includes Facebook, Intel and Google. Led by Tim Berners-Lee, the A4AI
seeks to make Internet access more affordable so that access is broadened in the developing
world, where only 31% of people are online. Google will help to decrease internet access prices
so that they fall below the UN Broadband Commission's worldwide target of 5% of monthly
income. In line with the maturing PC business, in July 2013, Microsoft announced that it would
reorganize the business into four new business divisions by function: Operating System, Apps,
Cloud and Devices. All previous divisions will be diluted into new divisions without any
workforce cut. On February 4, 2014, Steve Ballmer stepped down as CEO of Microsoft and was
succeeded by Satya Nadella, who previously led Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise division. On
the same day, John W. Thompson took on the role of chairman, with Bill Gates stepping down
from the position to become more active within the company as Technology Advisor. On April
25, 2014, Microsoft acquired Nokia Devices and Services and formed a new subsidiary,
Microsoft Mobile. On September 15, 2014, Microsoft acquired the video game development
company Mojang for $2.5 billion, best known for its wildly popular flagship game Minecraft. On
January 21, 2015, Microsoft announced the release of their first Interactive whiteboard, The
Surface Hub.[82] (Part of the Surface family) In Q1 2015, Microsoft is the third largest maker of
mobile phones selling 33 million units (7.2% of all), while a large majority (at least 75%) of
them do not run any version of Windows Phone those other phones are not categorized as
smartphones by Gartner in the same time frame 8 million Windows smartphones (2.5% of all
smartphones) w

Products
Windows
Microsoft Windows (or simply Windows) is a metafamily of graphical operating systems
developed, marketed, and sold by Microsoft. It consists of several families of operating systems,
each of which cater to a certain sector of the computing industry. Active Windows families
include Windows NT, Windows Embedded and Windows Phone; these may encompass
subfamilies, e.g. Windows Embedded Compact (Windows CE) or Windows Server. Defunct
Windows families include Windows 9x and Windows Mobile.

Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985, as a

graphical operating system shell for MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical
user interfaces (GUIs).[4] Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal computer
market with over 90% market share, overtaking Mac OS, which had been introduced in 1984.
However, since 2012, thanks to the massive growth of smartphones, Windows sells less than
Android, which became the most popular operating system in 2014, when counting all of the
computing platforms each operating system runs on; in 2014, the number of Windows devices
sold were less than 25% of Android devices sold. However, comparisons across different markets
are not fully relevant; and for personal computers, Windows is still the most popular operating
system.

As of July 2015, the most recent version of Windows for personal computers, tablets and
smartphones is Windows 10. The most recent versions for server computers and embedded
devices are respectively Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Embedded 8. A specialized
version of Windows runs on the Xbox One game console.[5]

The next server version of Windows is Windows Server 2016, which is expected to be released
in early 2016.
here made by all manufacturers (but mostly by Microsoft)

Office
Microsoft Office is an office suite of applications, servers, and services developed by Microsoft. It was
first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketing term
for a bundled set of applications, the first version of Office contained Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel,
and Microsoft PowerPoint. Over the years, Office applications have grown substantially closer with
shared features such as a common spell checker, OLE data integration and Visual Basic for Applications
scripting language. Microsoft also positions Office as a development platform for line-of-business
software under the Office Business Applications brand.

On 10 July 2012, Softpedia reported that Office is used by over a billion people worldwide.

The desktop version of Office is available for Windows and OS X. A touch-optimised version of
Microsoft Office is available pre-installed on Windows RT tablets. A mobile version of Office, Office
Mobile, is available for free on Windows Phone, iOS and Android. A web-based version of Office, Office
Online, is also available.[ Microsoft has stated that it plans to create a version of Office for "other popular
platforms" as well.[citation needed]

The current desktop version is Office 2016 for Windows and OS X, released on 22 September 2015[6]
and 9 July 2015 respectively.

Microsoft Silverlight
Microsoft Silverlight is a deprecated application framework for writing and running rich Internet
applications, similar to Adobe Flash. A plugin for Silverlight is available for some browsers. While early
versions of Silverlight focused on streaming media, current versions support multimedia, graphics, and
animation and give developers support for CLI languages and development tools. Silverlight is also one
of the two application development platforms for Windows Phone, but web pages that use Silverlight
cannot run on the Windows Phone or Windows Mobile versions of Internet Explorer, as there is no
Silverlight plugin for Internet Explorer on those platforms.

Microsoft announced the end of life of Silverlight 5 in 2012. In 2013, Microsoft announced that they had
ceased development of Silverlight except for patches and bugfixes. Silverlight is no longer supported in
Chrome on OS X, while support for Silverlight in Chrome on all other operating systems was disabled by
default in April 2015 and was removed completely in September 2015. Microsoft has set the support end
date for Silverlight 5 to be October 2021. In 2015, Microsoft announced that since support for ActiveX
was discontinued with Microsoft Edge, Silverlight will not be supported in that browser.

Silverlight was used to provide video streaming for the NBC coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics in
Beijing,[8] the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver,[9] and the 2008 conventions for both major United
States political parties.[10] Silverlight is also used by Amazon Video and Netflix for their instant video
streaming services,[11][12] but Netflix said in its Tech Blog in 2013 that, since Microsoft had announced
the end of life, they would be moving to HTML5 video

Organizational Structure
Microsoft Corporation separates its various functions to promote better oversight of these
operations. Facilities, retail, research and development, networking and operations and support
are some of the main divisions of the company's organizational structure. Creating a unique,
horizontally delineated management infrastructure for each of these branches makes it easy for
everyone in each of these departments to communicate rapidly and freely with others in their line
of work.
This method of organizational structure also generates ease of access to those at the top of the
organization. Microsoft Corporation prides itself at promoting open engagement between its
customer-facing personnel and its upper corporate management. This helps boost loyalty and
retention while showing everyone in the company that they are an essential part of the team. This
scenario also enhances control over individual operations and projects, thereby bringing about
the highest possible chance of success no matter the challenge.

10

Departments

11

Income Statement

12

Balance Sheet

13

Conclusion
In conclusion, Microsoft will go down in history as one of the most innovative companies that have
changed the way people go about their daily lives. Microsoft has come a long way from the days of
settling lawsuits with numerous companies to being the powerful software giant in the world today.
With technology comes innovation, and Microsoft has proven that it can be technological innovative
with all of the great products that we have seen from them over the years. Given the companys
strategies, core competencies, dynamics, and innovative breakthroughs, it is no wonder why
Microsoft has lasted this long, and will be around for many more years to come.

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