1. Microsoft An American Corporation

2. History an American multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for Altair 8800 It rose to dominate the personal computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid- 1980s, followed by Microsoft Windows.

3. History Continued 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.

4. Today’s Situation As of 2013, Microsoft is market dominant in both the IBM PC-compatible operating system and office software suite markets 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)

5. Finances Standard and Poor's and Moody's have both given a AAA rating to Microsoft, whose assets were valued at $41 billion as compared to only $8.5 billion in unsecured debt. For the first time in 20 years Apple Inc. surpassed Microsoft in Q1 2011 quarterly profits Microsoft profits were $5.2 billion, while Apple Inc. profits were $6 billion, on revenues of $14.5 billion and $24.7 billion respectively.[110]

6. Finances Cotinued As of January 2014, Microsoft's market capitalization stood at $314B,making it the 8th largest company in the world by market capitalization On November 14, 2014, Microsoft overtook Exxon Mobil to become the 2nd most valuable company by market capitalization, behind only Apple Inc

7. Five-Year History of Microsoft Stock

8. Comparison of market capitalization, revenue and profit: