Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software, consumer electronics and personal computers and services. Its best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, Microsoft Office office suite, and Internet Explorer web browser. Its flagship hardware products are Xbox game console and the Microsoft Surface series of tablets. It is the world's largest software maker measured by revenues. It is also one of the world's most valuable companies.

Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975 to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. It rose to dominate the personal computer operating system market, first with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by Microsoft Windows in the 1990s. The company's 1986 initial public offering, and subsequent rise in its share price, created an estimated three billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees. Since the 1990s, it has increasingly diversified from the operating system market and has made a number of corporate acquisitions. In May 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype Technologies for $8.5 billion in its largest acquisition to date.

As of 2013, Microsoft is market dominant in both the IBM PC-compatible operating system and office software suite markets (the latter with Microsoft Office). The company also produces a wide range of other software for desktops and servers, and is active in areas including Internet search (with Bing), the video game industry (with the Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One consoles), the digital services market (through MSN), and mobile phones (via the Windows Phone OS). In June 2012, Microsoft entered the personal computer production market for the first time, with the launch of the Microsoft Surface, a line of tablet computers.


 * Army of Lawyers
 * Big Brother Is Watching/Sinister Surveillance: A growing trend in Windows since the advent of the Internet era, with Windows 10 so thoroughly engaged in reporting what you do back to Microsoft that it all but panics some privacy advocates.
 * Defictionalised: An April Fool's Day article from Infoworld suggested that M$ would completely skip Windows 9 and go on to Windows 10. And lo, it came to pass that Windows 9 was skipped.
 * Demonization: Linux absolutely terrified Microsoft at the turn of the century.  They did everything they could to paint it as an immediate and dramatic threat to the survival of Western Civilization.  Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014, got plenty of press for his attacks on Linux, including calling it a "cancer" that infects software and "communist".
 * New Media Are Evil: If Microsoft doesn't own them.  When the Internet exploded into the popular culture in the late 1990s, Microsoft did everything it could to subvert the Net and turn it into a Microsoft product, treating it and its standards as the next targets of its infamous "Embrace, extend and extinguish" strategy.  (They didn't count on the Net fighting back.)
 * Perpetual Beta: Microsoft is often accused of this with varying and subjective levels of truth. When its monopoly was weakened by users outright refusing to adopt Windows Vista while XP still worked just fine, and the increasing popularity and variety of alternatives, the company appeared to be starting to clean up its act. They have been through more than one Dork Age before, though. (see: Windows ME)
 * Playful Hacker: Basically founded by a couple, and given what can be found hidden in its products (like the infamous Windows API call BozosLiveHere and its other creatively-named companions, a flight simulator inside Excel, and other goodies) it's pretty clear that they continue to employ more than a few.
 * Pragmatic Villainy: Microsoft still makes no bones about their desire to dominate their competition and never passes up a chance to do so, but has softened its stance over the years on competing with OSes like Unix and Linux, even being willing to ensure a degree of cross-compatibility and interactivity with them, since they absolutely dominate certain niches Windows just cannot adequately cover, especially when it comes to certain web applications.
 * Screw the Rules, I Make Them: Was infamous for this kind of attitude throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, defying even antitrust investigations to continue doing business the way it wanted.  Among the abuses it engaged -- and still engages -- in is the practice of forcing PC manufacturers to pay a license fee for Windows on every machine they create -- whether it ships with Windows on it or not.
 * Take That: The film Anti Trust, to Microsoft.