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 Corporation is a multinational corporation based in Redmond, Washington, USA and founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing. Due to the scope and size of the company, it encompasses a broad range of topics mostly revolving around critical analysis and the company's products and services.
Microsoft engineering groups are the operating divisions of Microsoft. Starting in April 2002, Microsoft organised itself into seven groups, each an independent financial entity. In September 2005, Microsoft announced a reorganization of its then seven groups into three. In July 2013, Microsoft announced another reorganization into five engineering groups and six corporate affairs groups. A year later, in June 2015, Microsoft reformed into three engineering groups. In September 2016, a new group was created to focus on artificial intelligence and research. On March 29, 2018, a new structure merged all of these into three.
Perceptive Pixel was a developer and producer of multi-touch interfaces. It was purchased by Microsoft in 2012. Its technology is now used in fields including broadcast, defense, geo-intelligence, energy exploration, industrial design and medical imaging.
Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft Mobile for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design language. Unlike Windows Mobile, it was primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market.
GitHub is a developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage and share their code. It uses Git software, providing the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous integration, and wikis for every project. Headquartered in California, it has been a subsidiary of Microsoft since 2018.
Microsoft Surface is a series of touchscreen-based personal computers, tablets, and interactive whiteboards designed and developed by Microsoft, most of them running the Windows operating system. They are designed to be premium devices that set examples for manufacturers of other Windows-compatible products. It comprises several generations of hybrid tablets, 2-in-1 detachable notebooks, a convertible desktop all-in-one, an interactive whiteboard, and various accessories, many with unique form factors. The majority of devices in the Surface lineup are based on Intel processors and compatible with Windows 10 or Windows 11.
The Surface Pro 3 is the third-generation Surface-series 2-in-1 detachable, designed, developed, marketed, and produced by Microsoft. It originally ran the Windows 8.1 Pro operating system (OS), but the optional upgrade to Windows 10 Pro (OS) operating system was later added.
The Surface Hub is a brand of interactive whiteboard developed and marketed by Microsoft, as part of the Microsoft Surface family. The Surface Hub is a wall-mounted or roller-stand-mounted device with either a 55-inch (140 cm) 1080p or an 84-inch (210 cm) 4K 120 Hz touchscreen with multi-touch and multi-pen capabilities, running the Windows 10 operating system. The devices are targeted for businesses to use while collaborating and videoconferencing.
The Microsoft Garage is a Microsoft program that encourages employees to work on projects about which they are passionate, despite having no relation to their primary function within the company. Employees from all divisions of Microsoft are free to take part in Microsoft Garage activities and small-scale innovation projects. The Microsoft Garage is a global program with locations on the main campus in Redmond, Washington, and several others spread all over the world, and a website that launched in October 2014 to share experimental projects with customers.
Microsoft Display Dock is a display docking station that allows selected Windows 10 mobile devices to connect to a computer monitor, mouse, and keyboard for a desktop PC-like experience. It is also the first device to act as a dock for Windows 10 Mobile's new "Continuum" feature which allows some mobile devices to run native mobile applications as if they were desktop applications, though despite emulating Windows 10 for PCs the software doesn't have most features that come with desktop versions such as running Windows Store applications side-by-side or Win32 applications, and various applications such as Microsoft Messaging and Skype do not run in full screen mode for larger monitors.
The Surface Pen is an active stylus and digital pen developed by Microsoft for its series of Surface computing devices. It is designed to showcase the pen computing capabilities of Microsoft's Windows 8/8.1, Windows 10 and Windows 11 operating systems.
The Surface Laptop is a laptop computer designed by Microsoft as part of the company's Surface line of personal computing devices. When it debuted, the laptop was intended to compete with Apple's MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.
Fluent Design System, officially unveiled as Microsoft Fluent Design System, is a design language developed in 2017 by Microsoft. Fluent Design is a revamp of Microsoft Design Language that includes guidelines for the designs and interactions used within software designed for all Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices and platforms. The system is based on five key components: light, depth, motion, material, and scale. The new design language includes more prominent use of motion, depth, and translucency effects.
The Surface Hub 2S is the second generation of the interactive whiteboard developed and marketed by Microsoft, as part of the Microsoft Surface family. Like the first-generation Surface Hub, the Hub 2S can be wall-mounted or roller-stand-mounted.
TianoCore EDK II is the reference implementation of UEFI by Intel. EDK is the abbreviation for EFI Development Kit and is developed by the TianoCore community. TianoCore EDK II is the de facto standard generic UEFI services implementation.
Windows App SDK is a software development kit (SDK) from Microsoft that provides a unified set of APIs and components that can be used to develop desktop applications for both Windows 11 and Windows 10 version 1809 and later. The purpose of this project is to offer a decoupled implementation of capabilities which were previously tightly-coupled to the UWP app model. Windows App SDK allows native Win32 (USER32/GDI32) or .NET (WPF/WinForms) developers alike a path forward to enhance their apps with modern features.
