Founded by childhood friends in 1975, Microsoft set out to develop a simple interpreter for the Altair 8800 microcomputer. By 1981, its 16-bit operating system was installed as standard on all IBM personal computers. Just eight years later, the company released the first incarnation of the Office program that over 345 million people still use around the world today.
The rest, as they say, is history. From here, Microsoft would go on to release its game-changing operating system, Windows 95, pioneer widespread use of the internet and enter the gaming arena with the Xbox.
Along the way, it would take its place as one of the largest companies in the world by revenue. Not to mention becoming the world’s largest software maker and at one point the most valuable publicly traded company. Today, Microsoft has the fourth-highest global brand valuation behind Amazon, Google and Apple.
As the world of technology has evolved dramatically over the past 50 years, Microsoft has maintained its position at the forefront. A pioneer of early computing, today it does the same in the world of data analytics and machine learning. Its Azure cloud service gives powerful ML capabilities to businesses for whom it was once out of reach.
Microsoft’s ML products enable data scientists, engineers and other professionals to train and deploy custom learning models directly into their workflows. Meanwhile, almost all Microsoft software, from its cybersecurity solutions to design and coding packages, incorporate AI to reduce manual processes and increase the speed of innovation.
Arguably the world’s most enduring tech company, its Azure software is used by over 70% of global organisations and 95% of the Fortune 100. Four in five Fortune 500 companies also use Office 365. At the same time, Windows runs on 1.6bn devices, and its Teams platform is used by 270m people every month.
Naturally, this global ubiquity translates into enormous returns, with reported revenues of USD 198bn in 2022.
