Microsoft Wikipedia

by Feb 04, 2026

The European Commission issued a statement of objections, alleging Microsoft’s practice since 2019 gave Teams an unfair market advantage and limited interoperability with competing software. 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. Microsoft was the first company to participate in the PRISM surveillance program, according to leaked NSA documents obtained by The Guardian and The Washington Post in June 2013, and acknowledged by government officials following the leak.
Meanwhile, that month, the company announced a subscription offering of artificial intelligence for small businesses via Copilot Pro. However, the plan was short-lived, as Altman was subsequently reinstated as OpenAI’s CEO and Brockman rejoined the company amid pressure from OpenAI’s employees and investors on its board. The service includes Copilot, a GPT-4 based large language model tool to query and visualize data, write code, initiate simulations, and educate researchers. In January 2023, CEO Satya Nadella announced Microsoft would lay off 10,000 employees.

  • 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.
  • Microsoft also confirmed that its Maia 200 AI accelerator, first revealed in January 2026, had entered production deployment in data centers in Iowa and Arizona, powering workloads including Microsoft 365 Copilot and OpenAI’s GPT-5.2 models.
  • The company’s retail locations are part of a greater strategy to help build a connection with its consumers.
  • The public cloud computing platform provides access to quantum software and quantum hardware including trapped ion, neutral atom, and superconducting systems.
  • The increased necessity for remote work and distance education drove demand for cloud computing and grew the company’s gaming sales.

Microsoft also named Phil Spencer, head of the Xbox brand since 2014, the inaugural CEO of the newly established Microsoft Gaming division, which now houses the Xbox operations Very Well team and the three publishers in the company’s portfolio (Xbox Game Studios, ZeniMax Media, Activision Blizzard). The acquisition positioned Microsoft to grow its presence in the market of providing online education to large numbers of people. In February 2019, hundreds of Microsoft employees protested what they termed war profiteering by the company from its $480 million contract to develop virtual reality headsets for the United States Army.

2014: Windows 8/8.1, Xbox One, Outlook.com, and Surface devices

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 Surface was unveiled in June 2012, becoming the first computer in the company’s history to have its hardware made by Microsoft. Other companies like Borland, WordPerfect, Novell, IBM and Lotus, being much slower to adapt to the new situation, would give Microsoft market dominance. 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.

1994: Windows and Office

In December 2013, the company made a statement to further emphasize that it takes its customers’ privacy and data protection very seriously, saying that “government snooping potentially now constitutes an ‘advanced persistent threat,’ alongside sophisticated malware and cyber attacks”. A Microsoft spokesperson stated that the corporation runs several programs that facilitate the sharing of such information with the U.S. government. The cuts affected multiple divisions, including Xbox, with 830 positions eliminated at its Redmond, Washington headquarters. In July 2025, Microsoft announced another round of layoffs, cutting approximately 9,000 employees in its largest workforce reduction in over two years. Blizzard president Mike Ybarra and chief design officer Allen Adham also resigned.

2014: Windows 8/8.1, Xbox One, Outlook.com, and Surface devices

  • Among grant recipients from the Asia-Pacific region are the Sri Lankan IT company Fortude, the Thailand-based Vulcan Coalition, and the Indonesian organization Kerjabilitas.
  • The “Connector” does not compete with the public bus system and works with it to provide a cohesive transportation network not just for its employees but also for the public.
  • A Big Tech company, Microsoft is the largest software company by revenue, one of the most valuable public companies, and one of the most valuable brands globally.
  • Microsoft provides information about reported bugs in its software to intelligence agencies of the United States government, prior to the public release of the fix.
  • In the same month, Microsoft announced the open source implementation of Windows Forms and the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) which will allow for further movement of the company toward the transparent release of key frameworks used in developing Windows desktop applications and software.
  • The company has also been criticized for the use of permatemp employees (employees employed for years as “temporary”, and therefore without medical benefits), the use of forced retention tactics, which means that employees would be sued if they tried to leave.

In August 1977, the company formed an agreement with ASCII Magazine in Japan, resulting in its first international office of ASCII Microsoft. Childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen sought to make a business using their skills in computer programming.

Frequently criticized are the ease of use, robustness, and security of the Microsoft’s software. Among grant recipients from the Asia-Pacific region are the Sri Lankan IT company Fortude, the Thailand-based Vulcan Coalition, and the Indonesian organization Kerjabilitas. 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. Dave Norris 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. Baker stated “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”.