Microsoft

Microsoft began by making software for microcomputers and became a central supplier to the IBM-compatible personal-computer industry. Its agreement to provide an operating system for IBM PCs helped establish MS-DOS as a major standard, while Windows later became the company’s best-known consumer platform.¹

The company’s business changed substantially after the 1990s. Microsoft expanded from packaged software into subscription services, cloud infrastructure, devices, gaming, advertising, and professional networking. Its 2001 acquisition of Bungie’s Halo franchise and the launch of Xbox helped it compete in the console market, while the acquisition of LinkedIn in 2016 broadened its enterprise and professional-data portfolio.²

Microsoft’s major businesses are organized around productivity, intelligent cloud, and personal computing. Microsoft 365 combines applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams with cloud storage, collaboration, and security features. Azure provides computing, storage, databases, networking, analytics, and artificial-intelligence services to organizations and developers.

Windows remains a major software platform, although Microsoft increasingly monetizes it alongside cloud services, subscriptions, and hardware rather than treating the operating system as an isolated product. The company also operates Bing, the Edge browser, Surface devices, GitHub, Dynamics business software, and Xbox services. Its revenue model therefore mixes recurring subscriptions, consumption-based cloud charges, software licensing, advertising, hardware, and digital content.³

Microsoft has repeatedly faced scrutiny because its software platforms can influence adjacent markets. In the United States, the Department of Justice’s antitrust case against Microsoft in the late 1990s focused on the relationship between Windows and Internet Explorer and produced landmark findings concerning the company’s conduct in personal-computer software markets.

The company continues to compete across unusually broad fields, including cloud computing against Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, productivity software against Google and other vendors, gaming against Sony and Nintendo, and enterprise development tools against commercial and open-source alternatives. Microsoft has also become a major participant in the artificial-intelligence economy through Azure services, developer tools, and its partnership with OpenAI, while regulators and researchers have examined competition, privacy, cybersecurity, and the social effects of large-scale computing.⁴

Microsoft’s less visible influence is especially strong in developer infrastructure and organizational computing. GitHub, acquired in 2018, hosts code repositories and collaboration tools used across open-source and commercial software development; Microsoft also maintains Visual Studio and .NET, which support application development on multiple operating systems.⁵

The company has experimented with hardware and operating systems beyond its mainstream products, including the Zune media player, Windows Phone, HoloLens mixed-reality devices, and Surface computers. Some projects were discontinued, but they illustrate Microsoft’s recurring strategy of using software ecosystems, developer adoption, and enterprise distribution to enter markets where it was not initially dominant. Xbox likewise extends beyond consoles through PC gaming, subscriptions, cloud gaming, accessibility features, and studios acquired to supply first-party content.²⁶

Azure

Microsoft’s cloud-computing platform, offering infrastructure, platforms, databases, analytics, security, and artificial-intelligence services.

Microsoft 365

A subscription suite combining Office applications with cloud storage, collaboration, security, and related services.

Windows

Microsoft’s family of operating systems for personal computers and other devices.

Xbox

Microsoft’s gaming business, including consoles, PC games, online services, subscriptions, and development studios.