Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation which produces
computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services. Its best known software products are the Microsoft
Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft Office suite, and the Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. Microsoft ranked No. 21 in the
2020 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue; it was the world's largest software maker by revenue as of 2016. It is considered one of the Big Five companies in the U.S. information technology industry, along with
Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook.
Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul
Allen in 1975, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. It rose to dominate the personal
computer operating system market with
MS-DOS in the
mid-1980s, followed by Microsoft
Windows. The company's 1986 initial public offering, and subsequent rise in its share price, created three billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires among Microsoft employees. their largest being the acquisition of LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in December 2016, followed by their acquisition of Skype Technologies for $8.5 billion in May 2011.