The Microsoft Company: An Overview Of Microsoft Corporation

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Microsoft Corporation
Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975 to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for Altair 8800. Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software, consumer electronics and personal computers and services. Its best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, Microsoft Office suite, and Internet Explorer web browser. Its flagship hardware products are Xbox game console and the Microsoft Surface series of tablets. It is the world's largest software maker measured by revenues. It is also one of the world's most valuable companies.
Property
1. IP Licensing Policy
To promote broader availability and use of our technologies, Microsoft may periodically publish new licensing programs on Microsoft.com. Microsoft currently maintains programs for licensing Windows and other source code, hundreds of communication protocols, popular Microsoft Office XML schemas, and other technologies.
2. Technology Licensing Programs
Microsoft has a variety of licensing programs including component technologies and file formats. The most popular programs are ClearType, Exchange ActiveSync Protocol, Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT), hardware Licensing, RTVideo and RTAudio codecs Porting kit and Windows Media Licensing Programs.
3. Open Specifications Licensing Programs
To facilitate interoperability with its most popular products, Microsoft licenses the patents that cover technical specifications for the protocols used to communicate with those products, its most popular binary file formats, and key standards and languages that are implemented in ...

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..., an independent canter of research promoting best practices in corporate ethics and compliance, announced today the selection of the 2014 World’s Most Ethical Companies. The World’s Most Ethical Company designation recognizes companies that truly go beyond making statements about doing business ethically and translate those words into action. Microsoft was included in the 2014 list of the World’s Most Ethical Companies. This is 4th year in a row for Microsoft and they commented the following regarding this honour.
References:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft
2. http://microsoft-news.com/microsoft-once-again-listed-in-worlds-most-ethical-companies-list/
3. http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_on_the_issues/archive/2012/06/01/microsoft-supports-gender-equality-with-unesco-and-the-latin-american-government-leaders-forum.aspx
4. http://www.microsoft.com

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