Microsoft: Microsoft Corporation

II – 1.1 Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft has been created in April the 4th 1975 by Bill GATES and Paul ALLEN. It is nowadays a multinational computer technology corporation which develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices.
Its best selling products are:
- Microsoft Windows(Operating System);
- Microsoft Suite Office;
Microsoft is also present on the hardware market with some accessories for computers such as mice and keyboards as well as in the video game market since 2001 with the Xbox.

In 2008 Microsoft counts 89,809 employees over the world located in 105 different countries.
The famous Bill GATES has been the CEO of the company from his creation until 2000 when he decided to take some distance by taking the position of chairman. The current CEO of Microsoft is Steve BALLMER.

As we can imagine Microsoft has a wide range of products and services. In order to make this presentation as focused as possible on the topic I decided to choose two products provided by this company:
One is the famous Operating System: Microsoft Windows, all versions included: Windows 2000, XP, Vista... as well as editions for example: Windows Vista Starter, Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows Vista Ultimate...
and the other one is the Microsoft web search engine: Live Search.

I chose Microsoft Windows in order to have a product which fits well the requirement for the examination of the Distribution Policies course and Live Search because I needed to continue my research regarding the world of search engines for my final master thesis.