Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Microsoft Introduction and Products
Microsoft Introduction and Products
Microsoft Introduction and Products
UNIVERSITY OF BALOCHISTAN
INTRODUCTION
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) is an American multinational computer
technology corporation. It develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide
range of software products for computing devices. Microsoft's best-selling products
are the Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of
productivity software. These products have prominent positions in their respective
markets, with market share estimates as high as 90% or more for Microsoft Windows
as of 2006 and for Microsoft Office as of 2003. One of Bill Gates' key visions for the
company was to "to get a workstation running our software onto every desk and
eventually in every home".
Founded to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800, Microsoft rose to
dominate the home computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-
1980s. The company released an initial public offering (IPO) in the stock market,
which, due to the ensuing rise of the stock price, has made four billionaires and an
estimated 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees.
Throughout its history the company has been the target of criticism for various
reasons, including monopoly status and anti-competitive business practices including
refusal to deal and tying. The U.S. Justice Department and the European Commission,
among others, have ruled against Microsoft for various antitrust violations.
HISTORY
Microsoft is a multinational computer technology corporation. The History of
Microsoft began on April 4, 1975, when it was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen
in Albuquerque. Its current best selling products are the Microsoft Windows
operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software.
Starting in 1980, Microsoft formed an important partnership with IBM which allowed
them to bundle Microsoft's operating system with computers that they sold, paying
Microsoft a royalty for every sale. In 1985, IBM requested that Microsoft write a new
operating system for their computers called the OS/2; Microsoft wrote the operating
system, but also continued to sell their own version of it, which was in direct
competition with the OS/2. The Microsoft version eventually overshadowed the OS/2
in terms of sales. When Microsoft launched several versions of Microsoft Windows in
the 1990s, they had captured over 90% market share of the world's personal
computers.
The company has now become largely successful. As of 2007, Microsoft has a global
annual revenue of US$51.12 billion and nearly 79,000 employees in 102 countries. It
develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for
computing devices.
SOFTWARES (PRODUCTS)
To be more precise in tracking performance of each unit and delegating responsibility,
Microsoft reorganized into seven core business groups, each an independent financial
entity, in April 2002. Later, on September 20, 2005, Microsoft announced a
rationalization of its original seven business groups into the three core divisions that
exist today:
a) The Windows Client, MSN and Server and Tool groups were merged into The
Miccosoft Platform Prodcuts & Service Division.
b) The Information Worker and Microsoft Business Solutions groups were
merged into The Microsoft Businss Division.
c) The Mobile and Embedded Devices and Home and Entertainment groups were
merged into The Microsoft Entertainment And Devices Division.
OPERATING SYSTEM
This division produces Microsoft's flagship product, the Windows operating system.
It has been produced in many versions, including Windows 3.1, Windows 95,
Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and
Windows Vista. Almost all IBM compatible personal computers designed for the
consumer come with Windows preinstalled.
SERVER SYSTEM
Microsoft offers a suite of server software, entitled Windows Server System. Windows
Server 2008, an operating system for network servers, is the core of the Windows
Server System line. Other server products include:
Microsoft Visual Studio is the company's set of programming tools and compilers.
The software product is GUI-oriented and links easily with the Windows APIs, but
must be specially configured if used with non-Microsoft libraries. The current version
is Visual Studio 2005. Visual Studio supports development for both native Windows
platform and .NET Framework.
ONLINE SERVICES
The online service MSN is also part of this division. Windows Live is the next
generation of Microsoft online initiative includes services such as Live Search,
Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger and others.
MICROSOFT OFFICE
The Microsoft Business Division produces Microsoft Office, which is the company's
line of office software. The software product includes Word (a word processor),
Access (a personal relational database application), Excel (a spreadsheet program),
Outlook (Windows-only groupware, frequently used with Exchange Server),
PowerPoint (presentation software), Microsoft FrontPage (a WYSIWYG HTML
editor), and Publisher (desktop publishing software). A number of other products
were added later with the release of Office 2003 including Visio, Project, MapPoint,
InfoPath and OneNote.
Microsoft has attempted to expand the Windows brand into many other markets, with
products such as Windows CE for PDAs and its "Windows-powered" Smartphone
products. Microsoft initially entered the mobile market through Windows CE for
handheld devices, which today has developed into Windows Mobile 5. The focus of
the operating system is on devices where the OS may not directly be visible to the end
user, in particular, appliances and cars. The company produces MSN TV, formerly
WebTV, a television-based Internet appliance. Microsoft used to sell a set-top Digital
Video Recorder (DVR) called the UltimateTV, which allowed users to record up to 35
hours of television programming from a direct-to-home satellite television provider
DirecTV.
GAMES & REFERENCE WORKS
Microsoft sells computer games that run on Windows PCs. It produces a line of
reference works that include encyclopedias and atlases, under the name Encarta.
Microsoft Zone hosts free premium and retail games where players can compete
against each other and in tournaments. Microsoft entered the game console market
dominated by Sony and Nintendo in late 2001, with the release of the Xbox.
OBJECTIVES OF MS WORD
MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS
1. ‘WORD’ is written in
a) Print b) Save
c) Open d) New
a) Bold b) Italic
c) Under line d) Justify
a) Ctrl + N b) Ctrl + O
c) Ctrl + S d) Ctrl + C
8. Shortcut key for subscript is
a) Ctrl + E b) Ctrl + F2
c) Ctrl + + d) Ctrl + L
9. Ctrl + F4 is to
10. Shift + F3 is to
TRUE FALSE