Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Its best-known software products are the Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity applications, the Azure cloud computing platform and the Edge web browser. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. Microsoft ranked No. 14 in the 2022 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue; and it was the world's largest software maker by revenue in 2022 according to Forbes Global 2000. It is considered one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Meta.
Microsoft Word is a word processor program developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including: IBM PCs running DOS (1983), Apple Macintosh running the Classic Mac OS (1985), AT&T UNIX PC (1985), Atari ST (1988), OS/2 (1989), Microsoft Windows (1989), SCO Unix (1990), macOS (2001), Web browsers (2010), iOS (2014) and Android (2015).
Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketing term for an office suite, the first version of Office contained Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint. Over the years, Office applications have grown substantially closer with shared features such as a common spell checker, Object Linking and Embedding data integration and Visual Basic for Applications scripting language. Microsoft also positions Office as a development platform for line-of-business software under the Office Business Applications brand.
Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager software system from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft 365 software suites. Though primarily being popular as an email client for businesses, Outlook also includes functions such as calendaring, task managing, contact managing, note-taking, journal logging, web browsing, and RSS news aggregation.
Microsoft Defender Antivirus is an antivirus software component of Microsoft Windows. It was first released as a downloadable free anti-spyware program for Windows XP and was shipped with Windows Vista and Windows 7. It has evolved into a full antivirus program, replacing Microsoft Security Essentials in Windows 8 or later versions.
Microsoft OneNote is a note-taking software developed by Microsoft. It is available as part of the Microsoft 365 suite and since 2014 has been free on all platforms outside the suite. OneNote is designed for free-form information gathering and multi-user collaboration. It gathers users' notes, drawings, screen clippings, and audio commentaries. Notes can be shared with other OneNote users over the Internet or a network.
Skype for Business is an enterprise software application for instant messaging and videotelephony developed by Microsoft as part of the Microsoft 365 suite. It is designed for use with the on-premises Skype for Business Server software, and a software as a service version offered as part of 365. It supports text, audio, and video chat, and integrates with Microsoft 365 components such as Exchange and SharePoint.
Google Workspace is a collection of cloud computing, productivity and collaboration tools, software and products developed and marketed by Google. It consists of Gmail, Contacts, Calendar, Meet and Chat for communication; Drive for storage; and the Google Docs Editors suite for content creation. An Admin Panel is provided for managing users and services. Depending on edition Google Workspace may also include the digital interactive whiteboard Jamboard and an option to purchase add-ons such as the telephony service Voice. The education edition adds a learning platform Google Classroom and today has the name Workspace for Education. It previously included Google Currents for employee engagement.
Microsoft OneDrive is a file-hosting service operated by Microsoft. First released in August 2007, it allows registered users to store, share and sync their files. OneDrive also works as the storage backend of the web version of Microsoft 365 / Office. OneDrive offers 5 GB of storage space free of charge, with 100 GB, 1 TB, and 6 TB storage options available either separately or with Microsoft 365 subscriptions.
SharePoint is a collection of enterprise content management and knowledge management tools developed by Microsoft. Launched in 2001, it was initially bundled with Windows Server as Windows SharePoint Server, then renamed to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, and then finally renamed to SharePoint. It is provided as part of Microsoft 365, but can also be configured to run as On-premises software.
Outlook.com, formerly Hotmail, is a free personal email service offered by Microsoft. This includes a webmail interface featuring mail, calendaring, contacts, and tasks services. Outlook can also be accessed via email clients using the IMAP or POP protocols.
Viva Engage is an enterprise social networking service that is part of the Microsoft 365 family of products. It is used mainly for private communication within organizations but is also used for networks spanning various organizations. Access to a Yammer network is determined by a user's Internet domain, so only individuals with approved email addresses may join their respective networks.
Microsoft Azure, or just Azure, is the cloud computing platform developed by Microsoft. It offers management, access and development of applications and services to individuals, companies, and governments through its global infrastructure. It also provides a range of capabilities, including software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS). Microsoft Azure supports many programming languages, tools, and frameworks, including Microsoft-specific and third-party software and systems.
AvePoint, Inc. is an independent software vendor of SaaS solutions to migrate, manage and protect data in Microsoft 365. AvePoint was founded in 2001 and is headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey. The company also has offices in the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, Singapore, and China.
ownCloud, a Kiteworks Company, is a free and open-source software project for content collaboration and sharing and syncing of files in distributed and federated enterprise scenarios. It allows companies and remote end-users to organize their documents on servers, computers, and mobile devices and work with them collaboratively while keeping a centrally organized and synchronized state.
Microsoft Office 2013 is a version of Microsoft Office, a productivity suite for Microsoft Windows. Unlike with Office 2010, no OS X equivalent was released.
Microsoft mobile services are a set of proprietary mobile services created specifically for mobile devices; they are typically offered through mobile applications and mobile browser for Windows Phone platforms, BREW, and Java. Microsoft's mobile services are typically connected with a Microsoft account and often come preinstalled on Microsoft's own mobile operating systems while they are offered via various means for other platforms. Microsoft started to develop for mobile computing platforms with the launch of Windows CE in 1996 and later added Microsoft's Pocket Office suite to their Handheld PC line of PDAs in April 2000. From December 2014 to June 2015, Microsoft made a number of corporate acquisitions, buying several of the top applications listed in Google Play and the App Store including Acompli, Sunrise Calendar, Datazen, Wunderlist, Echo Notification Lockscreen, and MileIQ.
Smartsheet is a software as a service (SaaS) offering for collaboration and work management, developed and marketed by Smartsheet Inc. It is used to assign tasks, track project progress, manage calendars, share documents, and manage other work, using a tabular user interface.
Microsoft Teams is a team collaboration application developed by Microsoft as part of the Microsoft 365 family of products, offering workspace chat and video conferencing, file storage, and integration of proprietary and third-party applications and services.
Microsoft 365 is a product family of productivity software, collaboration and cloud-based services owned by Microsoft. It encompasses online services such as Outlook.com, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, programs formerly marketed under the name Microsoft Office, enterprise products and services associated with these products such as Exchange Server, SharePoint, and Viva Engage. It also covers subscription plans encompassing these products, including those that include subscription-based licenses to desktop and mobile software, and hosted email and intranet services.
