Microsoft Corporation
TABLE OF CONTENTS
MICROSOFT HISTORY 1 EARLY INFLUENCES 2 FIRST BUSINESS VENTURE 3 EDUCATION ATTEMPT 3 THE MOTIVATIONAL SIDE OF FEAR 4 A JAPANESE CONNECTION 5 IBM INFLUENCE 5 SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 6 A CRUCIAL DEAL 6 COMPETITION ERRORS 7 BIRTH OF WINDOWS 7 MISSION STATEMENT AND ANALYSIS 8 INDUSTRY AND COMPETITVE ANALYSIS 9 DOMINANT ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS 9 Market Differentiation 9 Pace of technological change 10 Advances to the Printed Word 11 DRIVING FORCES 12 The Internet 13 The Information Highway 14 KEY SUCESS FACTORS 14
Microsoft History
Historians categorize blocks of
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. . an $18,000 personal computer which occupied a rack two feet square and six feet high and had about as much computing capacity as a wristwatch does today . . .
Despite its limitations, it inspired us to indulge in the dream that one day millions of individuals could possess their own computers.@ (11-12)
In the summer of 1973, Paul Allen, who knew more about computer hardware than
Bill Gates, shared an article with Gates buried on page 143 in Electronics
Magazine. The article described the invention of the 8008 micro-processor chip by a young company called Intel. Paul was surprised to receive the technical manual for the chip in the mail simply upon request. Immediately, he went to work analyzing its capabilities. Due to the lack of transistors, the 8008 chip was very limited in its use, but Allen discovered despite the limitations, the chip was good for repetitive tasks and mathematical data.
First Business Venture
When Paul Allen entered college at Pullman, Washington, a town on the east side of the state, sixteen-year-old Bill Gates traveled frequently by bus to visit him. On these long trips across the state, Gates wrote a program that facilitated the reading of traffic information gathered by municipalities through a device set up on the side of certain intersections. A long, rubber tube stretched across the road from one of these devices, and each time a vehicle ran over the tube a punch was made in the roll of paper within the device. People
During the 1970s, technology in the United States was still growing as personal computers were not as popular due to their bulky size. Not only were computers large in their form, they also cost more than what an average working class American could pay for. Due to the steppe price of a computer, they were considered more of a novelty item rather than a necessity for everyday use. Although personal computers were not yet seen in homes,
1. This question addresses the effect of Microsoft’s software capitalization policy on its financial statements. Ignore any potential tax effects.
and the sale of noncore assets were common. Moreover, in anticipation of sluggish sales in the
Apple’s first computer was developed around the 1970’s. Since then they have surpass one of
had to buy, Microsoft also would sing contracts with the vendors for long periods of time
Brenda Franklin had been serving Allied Tech for the past 8 years. As any other organisations, Brenda used to be a part of the lunch hour conversations with her colleagues. One day when her colleagues were discussing about corruption and politics, something occurred to her. As a result she prepared a list called “Ethically Dubious Conduct” and pasted it on the common notice board. Her colleagues were taken by surprise. Brenda was now anticipating the next lunch where she was expecting her list to be analysed among her colleagues.
1. What changes does FTP make to an ASCII file when you download it in ASCII mode to a windows machine from a Linux server? What changes are made when you download the file to a Mac?
The website is well organized, making it very simple to find what a person is looking for. Unlike Microsoft, it is well spaced, which helps to grab the reader’s attention. Microsoft’s homepage is setup fairly differently from Apple’s. Instead of having a main ad like Apple, its site has a set of highlights advertising their information. Highlights do not catch a reader’s attention as well as Apple’s large ad. Furthermore, Microsoft’s homepage is also packed with a lot of information in such little space. The information is broken down into bullet points, but the font is small and there are hardly any images to differentiate between the items. There is little to attract the reader to make him/her want to read through this content because it just appears to be boring. Therefore, the homepage of Apple and Microsoft differ.
Salesforce.com has been considered one of the most disruptive technology companies of the past few years and is credited with single-handedly shaking up the software industry with its innovative business model and resounding success. This company provides CRM solutions in the form of 'software-as-a-service' leased over the Internet, as opposed to software bought and installed on machines locally. It was founded in 1999 by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff, and has since grown to 2,600 employees and earned $748 million in revenue in 2007.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was established in 2000 by its namesake, Bill Gates, and his wife Melinda. The couple created the foundation “to help reduce inequities in the United States and around the world.”1 It is headquartered in Seattle, Washing and is co-chaired by Bill, Melinda and William Gates Sr. Since its founding the foundation has accrued an incredible $31.9 billion and has a net worth of almost $50 billion. With such spending power, the foundation has been able to make great progress, particularly in the areas of global health. It has also made a sincere effort to improve many public school systems in the US.
(1) What marketing orientation or approach does Office Depot appear to be using now? How does Office Depot create value for its customers? Describe two things it could do it move it more toward implementing the marketing concept.
Even with this publicly ethical image, Microsoft has been mired in litigation since 1990, and has paid billions of dollars in legal settlements and fees to address allegations of anti-competitive business practices. Hollywood even jumped on the bandwagon with the 2001
Large corporations such as Wal-Mart or Home Depot often come under criticism for putting mom-and-pop shops out of business. While this may be a valid criticism, the consumers neglect to realize that they play the biggest part in shutting these businesses down. Consumers across the country are always looking for the best deals or the lowest prices, and in most cases the larger corporations are where products can be found at the lowest price. Many small business owners and the populations of small towns dislike large corporations moving into the area because they believe it negatively effects the local
Most corporate financing decisions in practice reduce to a choice between debt and equity. The finance manager wishing to fund a new project, but reluctant to cut dividends or to make a rights issue, which leads to the decision of borrowing options. The issue with regards to shareholder objectives being met by the management in making financing decisions has come to become a major issue of recent times. This relates to understanding the concept of the agency problem. It deals with the separation of ownership and control of an organisation within a financial context. The financial manager can raise long-term funds internally, from the company’s cash flow, or externally, via the capital market, the market for funds
Information technology is a rapidly growing part of today's society. It affects everyone's life in many aspects. Every human endeavor is influenced by information technology and the increasing rate at which what it can perform includes. One area of human endeavor that information technology has greatly influenced is the practice of medicine, specifically veterinary medicine. Not only has veterinary medicine been influenced by information technology, it has also been enhanced by it. The degree to which the practice of veterinary medicine includes information technology is observable at the Animal Emergency Clinic of Central New York on Erie Blvd. in Syracuse, New York.