Technology And The Technology Industry

Microsoft has their dominance of the industry at stake. They could potentially come out on top if left to continue their current tactics. They are masterfully “marketing their products” and it is paying off for them (Love, 1997).

They have expand their business from only on computer software and hardware to online search engine, home gaming devices and smartphone, those business are the popular business in the world, Microsoft is trying to adapt the new market.

When Microsoft transitioned to providing its customers with an innovative idea, Bill Gates was instrumental

Microsoft was founded in 1975, and is the worldwide leader in software, services, and solutions (Career). Microsoft is proud to offer great products and employ outstanding people. Previous Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer once said, “There are many things that are true about Microsoft. We have big goals, big dreams, and big aspirations for the future. We are both competitive with our products and in the way we attract and retain talent. For me, the most important factor is competition for talent, because I know our success comes from the people who work here” (Foley).

Microsoft has been a successful organization, and known as one of the founders of the computing world that the world has become. This is headed by Bill Gates. Microsoft became successful with strategic planning, groundbreaking research, and excellent business commerce throughout the years of operation. Though the industry has growing at an astounding pace with the development of the technology seen in the world today, Microsoft has been able to withstand the industry growth to remain one of the highest revenue companies in the industry today. Microsoft uses advertising to its advantage to continue to attract consumers with state of the art technology. As stated, “Our success depends on our ability to attract new users, understand intent, and match intent with relevant content and advertiser offerings” (Microsoft SEC 10-K, pg. 8).

Microsoft's stated mission statement is "to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential." Arguably, a statement this vague provides so little sense of mission that it lacks value. That is the point. Microsoft cannot even uphold its own mission internally, given the gap between the company's potential and the company's output. That the company has no coherent, tangible sense of its own mission is a contributing factor to that failure. Consider the company's resources. As Clarke (2010) notes, it is not for lack of ideas that Microsoft has failed to innovate. The company has great people, highly-talented, educated and experienced. It has $66 billion in cash on its balance sheet and another $10 billion in long-term investments (MSN Moneycentral, 2012). Clarke (2010) notes that the company spends $9 billion per year on research and development. The potential for innovation at Microsoft, then, is tremendous, yet its output is minimal.

Microsoft is a growing company that began with Bill Gates’ ambition in the garage of his home. Microsoft “purchased MS-DOS, the PC’s first operating system, from another firm” (mondediplo 11/1997) as a company it learned the ways of the market and was able to buy out most of its competition. “Microsoft has succeeded in part because its management was willing to spend enormous resources to improve its products, which were often poor performers in the early releases, and also because it excels in marketing its products” (mondediplo 11/1997). Microsoft has become the epitome of a company that has nurtured and grown its own success and now is being penalized for doing so.

Technology is changing, which increases the capital market. In order for a company to be successful it had to reach customer expectations, which is what Microsoft is doing. Microsoft continuously releases new products that are cheaper and up to date. Microsoft has a goal of making sure they build customer loyalty and the customers receive profit. Microsoft has released Windows

Microsoft is a highly diversified company. Its technologically-related products span from software to music players to game consoles to web browsers to search engines to phones. However, its flagship product, the product which has been the primary driver of its profits has been Microsoft Windows, the ubiquitous operating system that runs on virtually every computer in the world. Windows has been deemed so critical that even Microsoft's competitor Apple was effectively forced by market pressures to allow its Macs to run Windows, in an effort to boost sales. "As astounding as Apple's success has been, it hasn't put a dent in the Microsoft Office monopoly. [Current CEO] Ballmer and company still profit on every Macbook running Word, Excel and PowerPoint" (Greg 2012).But while Microsoft continues to make its highly profitable Windows products (despite industry criticism about its user features); it has struggled to diversify in its many critical areas, most notable in its music, phones, and Internet service.

Microsoft has been fighting competitors in the Operating System fields as well as the Search field for many years. After Apple launched its new Macintosh computer, Microsoft came out with its first production of Windows which had a graphic user interface. Microsoft had 95% of all OS on individual PC’s in the 2000’s where apple only had about 2%-3% (Rivkin 2). A new venture that Microsoft was working toward was application software where the produced Microsoft Word and Excel. At first these two applications where not very popular on PC computers because WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 where the main applications being run. Microsoft’s solution to this competition was

Over the years, Microsoft has primarily focused on developing software. However, since it has seen a drastic decrease in its revenues and popularity, it has introduced a change in its focus. There have been some major changes within Microsoft Corporation. A change, which involves expanding and branching out into producing hardware like Xbox and Surface tablet. It has also ventured into Skype, MSN, Bing and Windows Phone. Venturing out into these services has helped Microsoft bring a change to its long established image of just

Now let’s talk more about Microsoft and what they are currently doing. Microsoft has kind of been on the downslope for a while. With all the new competition from other companies like Alphabet and Apple there is now more substitutes for Microsoft’s windows operating system. It doesn’t help that Microsoft made a very poor operating system called windows 8 which drove away a lot of their customers. Another thing that Microsoft regrets is their neglecting of the mobile industry, which is something Google excels in. Microsoft first refused to go into the mobile industry, which killed them because the mobile computing industry has been the growing popularity in the past 5 years or so. All of their bad business decisions changed when Microsoft got their new CEO Satya Nadella. Satya has so far completely made a 180-degree change in the company and their products. Recently Microsoft has released a new operating system called windows 10 and it caters to every form of electronic device including desktops, laptops, touchscreen tablets, phones and even gamming consoles. The best part of the

For Microsoft to be able to enjoy their current leading market position is all due to their wide range of products, services and hardware solutions offered to their customers. GlobalData (2014) states that the revenues generated by Microsoft are due to their expertise on developing, manufacturing, licensing and supporting software and services globally and Microsoft focus on developments to expend themselves such as developments of systems, server applications, information worker productivity applications, business solution applications, high-performance computing applications and software developments tools . In addition, with their constructive product portfolio, the wide variation of customer’s needs across

PC market has matured and hence reached to saturation. So, expected growth rate in this industry is not much. Hence, generating revenue has become difficult for Microsoft.

in order to create possibly the most effective and versatile workforce of any corporation in existence. To study Microsoft's way of doing business is to look at the company from many angles, from a managerial and organizational standpoint to its process of developing products and services for its customers and its competitive environment. The purpose of this paper is to analyze Microsoft from a strategic fit