The company created its version of BASIC (Its first product) for the machine created by MITS and licensed this to MITS on 2/1/75. The company also licensed its version of BASIC to GE, Citibank and a host of others. The name "Microsoft" was registered on 11/26/76.

The first international office of the company was established when Microsoft formed a strategic partnership with Kazuhiko Nishi, founder of ASCII Corporation in Japan. In 1979 Microsoft expanded into European markets. Microsoft announced its third language product, Microsoft COBOL-80 on 4/11/78. Microsoft's year end sales exceeded $1 million dollars for the first time in 1978. In 1980 Steve Ballmer arrived, who is the current CEO of the company.

In 1981 MS-DOS made an appearance for the first time. It debuted on IBM's personal computer on 8/12/81. This was the first super successful product of Microsoft.

On 6/25/81 Microsoft reorganized into a privately held corporation with Bill Gates as President and Chairman of the Board and Paul Allen as Executive Vice President.

Now Microsoft develops a wide range of software products for a lot of computer devices. Microsoft software includes scalable operating systems for many PC's. The Company's online efforts include the MSN network of Internet products and services. Microsoft also licenses consumer software programs, sells hardware devices, provides consulting services, trains and certifies system integrators and developers and researches and develops advanced technologies for future software products. Microsoft has four product segments: Desktop and Enterprise Software and Services, Consumer Software, Services and Devices, Consumer Commerce Investments, and Other.

In 1993 the number of licensed users of Windows totaled more than 25 million, making Windows the most popular graphical operating system in the world. Designed for mission-critical corporate applications, Microsoft Windows NT was launched. Microsoft introduced a better mouse, code named "Carrera." 1n 1994 Microsoft Office became the #1 product in its category, with sales of more than seven million units in little over one year.

Microsoft became the first software company to reach revenues of more than one billion in 1990. During this year Microsoft Windows 3.0 was announced. In just one year, Microsoft shipped four million copies of Windows 3.0 to 24 countries in 12 languages. MS-DOS 5.0 - the first version of MS-DOS featuring a retail upgrade was shipped. Microsoft announced Visual BASIC at Windows World '91. Microsoft also announced new versions of Excel 3.0 . Microsoft Announced the worldwide availability of Windows 3.1 on 6th April,1992.

Microsoft Xbox, released in November 2001, is Microsoft's future-generation video game console system that delivers high quality graphics and audio game play experiences and will ultimately enable new online gaming scenarios. Learning and Productivity Software titles include Microsoft Encarta multimedia encyclopedia and Microsoft Bookshelf CD-ROM reference library. Microsoft develops a number of software platforms for mobile computing form factors. Products such as Pocket PC, Microsoft Mobile Explorer, and Microsoft Smart phone platform are designed to enable a variety of mobile scenarios.

Microsoft is an ever growing company and has many aspects of the ind

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