Criticism of Microsoft has followed various aspects of its products and business practices. Among grant recipients from the Asia-Pacific region are the Sri Lankan IT company Fortude, the Thailand-based Vulcan Coalition, and the Indonesian organization Kerjabilitas. Microsoft also supports initiatives through its AI for Accessibility grant program, providing funding to various global organizations that create technologies to enhance accessibility for individuals with disabilities. In June 2022, Microsoft published the report on Russian cyber attacks and concluded that state-backed Russian hackers “have engaged in “strategic espionage” against governments, think tanks, businesses and aid groups” in 42 countries supporting Kyiv. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, announced that it had donated an initial batch of supplies, including 15,000 protection goggles, infrared thermometers, medical caps, and protective suits, to healthcare workers in Seattle, with further aid to come.
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- In 1990, the Federal Trade Commission examined Microsoft for possible collusion due to the partnership with IBM, marking the beginning of more than a decade of legal clashes with the government.
- The company released the Xbox later that year, entering the video game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo.
- Understand the market, and the customers, and then go pedal to the metal, with release after release focused on what the customers need, incorporating their feedback.
- The program authorizes the government to secretly access data of non-US citizens hosted by American companies without a warrant.
- Microsoft Office 2007, released at the same time, featured a “Ribbon” user interface which was a significant departure from its predecessors.
- December also saw the company discontinue the Microsoft Edge Legacy browser project in favor of the “New Edge” browser project, featuring a Chromium based backend.
- The group, accessed “a very small percentage” of Microsoft corporate email accounts, which also included members of its senior leadership team and employees in its cybersecurity and legal teams.
In June 2016, Microsoft announced a project named Microsoft Azure Information Protection. Intune for Education is a new cloud-based application and device management service for the education sector. On March 1, 2016, Microsoft announced the merger of its PC and Xbox divisions, with Phil Spencer announcing that Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps would be the focus for Microsoft’s gaming in the future.
In May 2016, Microsoft announced another 1,850 job cuts mostly in its Nokia mobile phone division. In July 2015, Microsoft announced another 7,800 job cuts in the next several months. In October 2014, Microsoft revealed that it was almost done with eliminating 18,000 employees, which was its largest-ever layoff sweep. In September 2014, Microsoft laid off 2,100 people, including 747 people in the Seattle–Redmond area, where the company is headquartered. Another study, released by the Open Source Development Labs, claimed that the Microsoft studies were “simply outdated and one-sided” and their survey concluded that the TCO of Linux was lower due to Linux administrators managing more servers on average and other reasons.
Microsoft Redmond Campus Refresh
Microsoft provides information about reported bugs in its software to intelligence agencies of the United States government, prior to the public release of the fix. In May 2025, Microsoft announced that it is laying off more than 6,000 employees, around three percent of the company’s entire workforce. The public cloud computing platform provides access to quantum software and quantum hardware including trapped ion, neutral atom, and superconducting systems. In the same month, Microsoft announced the open source implementation of Windows Forms and the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) which will allow for further movement of the company toward the transparent release of key frameworks used in developing Windows desktop applications and software. On February 12, 2009, Microsoft announced its intent to open a chain of Microsoft-branded retail stores, and on October 22, 2009, the first retail Microsoft Store opened in Scottsdale, Arizona; the same day Windows 7 was officially released to the public.
On November 20, 2023, Satya Nadella announced that Sam Altman, who had been ousted as CEO of OpenAI just days earlier, and Greg Brockman, who had resigned as president, would join Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team. The service includes Copilot, a GPT-4 based large language model tool to query and visualize data, write code, initiate simulations, and educate researchers. In June 2023, Microsoft released Azure Quantum Elements to run molecular simulations and calculations in computational chemistry and materials science using a combination of AI, high-performance computing and quantum computing. On January 23, 2023, Microsoft announced a new multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment deal with ChatGPT developer OpenAI. Microsoft also named Phil Spencer, head of the Xbox brand since 2014, the inaugural CEO of the newly established Microsoft Gaming division, which now houses the Xbox operations team and the three publishers in the company’s portfolio (Xbox Game Studios, ZeniMax Media, Activision Blizzard).
Additional offices are located in Bellevue and Issaquah, Washington (90,000 employees worldwide). It is estimated to encompass over 8 million ft2 (750,000 m2) of office space and 30,000–40,000 employees. In 2023 Microsoft consumed 24 TWh of electricity, more than countries such as Iceland, Ghana, the Dominican Republic, or Tunisia.
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More recently, it has been criticized for its role in providing services to Israel during the Gaza war. Under Nadella’s direction, the company has expanded its video gaming business to support the Xbox brand, establishing the Microsoft Gaming division in 2022 and the acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion in 2023. During the 41 years from 1980 to 2021 Microsoft released 9 versions of MS-DOS with a median frequency of 2 years, and 13 versions of Windows with a median frequency of 3 years. When you sign in to your Google Account, all the Google services you use work together to help you get more done. Your Google Account helps you save time by automatically filling in passwords, addresses, and payment details using the information you’ve saved to your account. No matter which device or Google service you’re using, your account gives you a consistent experience you can customize and manage at any time.
2011: Microsoft Azure, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Microsoft Stores
The European Commission issued a statement of objections, alleging Microsoft’s practice since 2019 gave Teams an unfair market advantage and limited interoperability with competing software. In June 2024, Microsoft faced a potential EU fine after regulators accused it of abusing market power by bundling its Teams video-conferencing app with its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 software. People who use its products and services often end up becoming dependent on them, a process known as vendor lock-in. The company is often referred to as a “Velvet Sweatshop”, a term which originated in a 1989 Seattle Times article, and later became used to describe the company by some of Microsoft’s own employees. Historically, Microsoft has also been accused of overworking employees, in many cases, leading to burnout within just a few years of joining the company. Frequently criticized are the ease spinnaus sign up of use, robustness, and security of the company’s software.
- In June 2025 Microsoft helped suspend the email account of an International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor in the Netherlands who was investigating Israel for war crimes in order to comply with a Trump executive order.
- The organization requested that European data protection authorities investigate whether this data processing complies with EU law.
- On January 12, Microsoft released PowerShell Core 6.0 for the macOS and Linux operating systems.
- In April 2019, Microsoft became the third public U.S. company to be valued at over $1 trillion.
- On February 28, 2025, Microsoft announced that Skype would be shutting down on May 5, 2025, to streamline its focus on Microsoft Teams.
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In April 2016, the company sued the U.S. government, argued that secrecy orders were preventing the company from disclosing warrants to customers in violation of the company’s and customers’ rights. A Microsoft spokesperson stated that the corporation runs several programs that facilitate the sharing of such information with the U.S. government. In July 2025, Microsoft announced another round of layoffs, cutting approximately 9,000 employees in its largest workforce reduction in over two years.
2007: Foray into the Web, Windows 95, Windows XP, and Xbox
It was announced that the division would be led by Jordan Hoffman, who previously worked for Deepmind and Inflection. In April 2024, it was announced that Microsoft would be opening a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence ‘hub’ around Paddington in London, England. In 2016, the company bought the 32-acre (13 ha) campus, with plans to renovate and expand it by 25%. The company is planning to upgrade its Mountain View, California, campus on a grand scale.
On November 10, 2020, Microsoft released the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S video game consoles. On February 20, 2019, Microsoft said it would offer its cyber security service AccountGuard to 12 new markets in Europe, including Germany, France and Spain, to close security gaps and protect customers in the political space from hacking. December also saw the company discontinue the Microsoft Edge Legacy browser project in favor of the “New Edge” browser project, featuring a Chromium based backend.
The program authorizes the government to secretly access data of non-US citizens hosted by American companies without a warrant. Microsoft was the first company to participate in the PRISM surveillance program, according to leaked NSA documents obtained by The Guardian and The Washington Post in June 2013, and acknowledged by government officials following the leak. This is due to the company being tax resident in Bermuda as mentioned in the accounts for ‘Microsoft Round Island One, a subsidiary that collects license fees from the use of Microsoft software worldwide. In 2011, Greenpeace released a report rating the top ten big brands in cloud computing on the sources of electricity for their data centers. In December 2013, the company made a statement to further emphasize that it takes its customers’ privacy and data protection very seriously, saying that “government snooping potentially now constitutes an ‘advanced persistent threat,’ alongside sophisticated malware and cyber attacks”.
In November 2018, the company won a $480 million military contract with the U.S. government to bring augmented reality (AR) headset technology into the weapon repertoires of American soldiers. On November 14, 2014, Microsoft overtook ExxonMobil to become the second most-valuable company by market capitalization, behind only Apple Inc. As of January 2014, Microsoft’s market capitalization stood at $314B, making it the 8th-largest company in the world by market capitalization. Consequently, in February 2011 Microsoft released a corporate bond amounting to $2.25 billion with relatively low borrowing rates compared to government bonds. The company is run by a board of directors made up of mostly company outsiders, as is customary for publicly traded companies.
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