- Business
- Microsoft Corporation (MSFT; MSF.BR), founded in 1975 and headquartered in Redmond, Washington, develops, licenses, and supports a broad range of software, services, devices, and solutions worldwide; its core products and services encompass the Windows operating system family, Microsoft 365 productivity suite including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and OneDrive; the Azure cloud computing platform; enterprise tools such as SQL Server, Visual Studio, and Dynamics 365; hardware including Surface personal computers and Xbox gaming consoles with associated Xbox network services; consumer internet offerings like Bing search, MSN portal, and Microsoft Store; and artificial intelligence capabilities integrated via Copilot across its ecosystem. The company operates in productivity and business processes, intelligent cloud, and more personal computing segments, serving enterprises, consumers, developers, and governments across global markets. Recent developments include major acquisitions such as Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion in 2023 to bolster gaming, Nuance Communications for $19.7 billion in 2021 to enhance AI-driven speech technologies, and ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion in 2020; strategic partnerships with Anthropic, NVIDIA, PwC, and Lumen Technologies to advance enterprise AI; a $30 billion investment in UK AI infrastructure from 2025-2028; expanded collaborations like the Global AI Infrastructure Investment Partnership with BlackRock worth up to $100 billion; launches of Agent 365, Azure AI Foundry, and custom Maia and Cobalt chips; alongside workforce reductions of about 9,000 jobs in July 2025 amid heavy AI spending, the planned shutdown of Skype on May 5, 2025 in favor of Teams, and price increases for Microsoft 365 business plans starting July 2026.