- Business
- Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.NE), headquartered in Redmond, Washington and founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, develops, licenses and supports software, services, devices and solutions worldwide across productivity, cloud computing, personal computing and gaming segments. The Productivity and Business Processes segment provides Microsoft 365 Commercial and Consumer subscriptions including Office, Exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, Outlook, OneNote, Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate and Microsoft Copilot; Enterprise Mobility + Security services; Dynamics 365 business solutions for customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning and Power Platform offerings; and legacy on-premises software such as Office and Windows Server. The Intelligent Cloud segment offers Azure cloud services encompassing computing, storage, networking, databases including SQL Server, analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning and development tools like Visual Studio; and other enterprise services including Windows Server and hybrid solutions. The More Personal Computing segment delivers Windows operating systems licenses for PCs and devices; patent licensing; Xbox gaming hardware, Xbox Game Pass subscriptions and first- and third-party content; Surface PCs, tablets and devices; PC accessories; advertising via Bing search, news, MSN portal and Edge browser; and LinkedIn services for enterprise and individual customers. Microsoft operates globally with significant presence in the U.S., Europe, Asia-Pacific and other regions, serving consumers, enterprises, governments and developers. Recent developments include the 2023 acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion to bolster gaming capabilities; multi-billion dollar investments in OpenAI including a January 2023 deal and ongoing AI partnership; expanded alliances such as the September 2024 Global AI Infrastructure Investment Partnership with BlackRock, Global Infrastructure Partners, MGX, NVIDIA and xAI targeting up to $100 billion for AI data centers and energy; March 2024 acquisition of Inflection AI assets to form Microsoft AI; new AI launches at Microsoft Ignite 2025 including Agent 365, enhanced Copilot features and partnerships with Anthropic and NVIDIA; a multi-year strategic partnership with WSP Global announced in February 2025 exceeding $1 billion for AEC digital transformation; product updates like Visual Studio 2026, SQL Server 2025 and Dragon Copilot for Nursing; and workforce reductions in July 2025 affecting around 9,000 jobs amid AI infrastructure investments.