In January 2018, Microsoft patched Windows 10 to account for CPU problems related to Intel’s Meltdown security breach. Microsoft planned to launch a preview of Intune for Education « in the coming weeks », with general availability scheduled for spring 2017, priced at $30 per device, or through volume licensing agreements. In November 2016, Microsoft joined the Linux Foundation as a Platinum member during Microsoft’s Connect(); developer event in New York.
Microsoft created Windows CE 1.0, a new OS designed for devices with low memory and other constraints, such as personal digital assistants. Branching out into new markets in 1996, Microsoft and General Electric’s NBC unit created a new 24/7 cable news channel, MSNBC. Backed by a high-profile marketing campaign and what The New York Times called « the splashiest, most frenzied, most expensive introduction of a computer product in the industry’s history, » Windows 95 quickly became a success. The web browser Internet Explorer was not bundled with the retail release of Windows 95, and was instead included in the later Microsoft Plus!
- IBM awarded a contract to Microsoft in November 1980 to provide a version of the CP/M OS to be used in the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC).
- Microsoft was the first company to participate in the PRISM surveillance program, according to leaked NSA documents obtained by The Guardian and The Washington Post in June 2013, and acknowledged by government officials following the leak.
- Microsoft initially moved onto the grounds of the campus on February 26, 1986, weeks before the company went public on March 13.
- On March 13, 2020, Gates announced that he is leaving the board of directors of Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway to focus more on his philanthropic efforts.
- Microsoft stated that it was in compliance and that « these fines are about the past issues that have been resolved ».
Treatment modifications were required in 8 patients in Arm A and 9 patients in Arm B due to adverse events, with the relative dose intensity reduced to 50% in these cases. Arm B patients experienced similar rates of fatigue (63%) and paresthesia (40%), but had higher incidences of chemotherapy-related toxicities including nausea (50%), vomiting (46.7%), and hematological adverse events. Notably, three patients achieved sufficient tumor reduction to undergo surgical resection after treatment. With a median follow-up of 18.2 months, both treatment approaches demonstrated encouraging clinical activity.
Microsoft implemented a new strategy for the software industry, providing a consistent user experience across all smartphones using the Windows Phone OS. As a result, in 2010 Microsoft revamped its aging flagship mobile operating system, Windows Mobile, replacing it with the new Windows Phone OS that was released in October that year. Azure Services Platform, the company’s entry into the cloud computing market for Windows, launched on October 27, 2008. The European Union imposed another fine of €899 million ($1.4 billion) for Microsoft’s lack of compliance with the March 2004 judgment on February 27, 2008, saying that the company charged rivals unreasonable prices for key information about its workgroup and backoffice servers. Microsoft Office 2007, released at the same time, featured a « Ribbon » user interface which was a significant departure from its predecessors. The company released the Xbox later that year, entering the video game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo.
United States government
During the Russian invasion of Ukraine Microsoft started monitoring cyberattacks originating from the Government of Russia and Russia-backed hackers. In 2015, Microsoft Philanthropies, an internal charitable organization, was established to bring the benefits of technology and the digital revolution to areas and groups that lack them. In 2025, Microsoft was one of the donors who funded the demolition of the East Wing of the White House and planned building of a ballroom.
Global
A recent phase 2 clinical trial conducted at Zhongshan Hospital of Fudan University has provided new insights into potential first-line treatment options for patients with advanced ICC. In a company memo, the company stated that Puget Sound-area employees will be expected to follow the new policy, including those located outside of Washington, who will also phase into the revised schedule. In June 2024, Microsoft announced it would be laying off 1,000 employees from the company’s mixed reality and Azure cloud computing divisions. The public cloud computing platform provides access to quantum software and quantum hardware including trapped ion, neutral atom, and superconducting systems. Preliminary results have shown objective responses in 82.4% of patients naïve to FGFR inhibitor treatment at the recommended phase 2 dose.
2011: Microsoft Azure, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Microsoft Stores
Often described as a Big Tech company, Microsoft is the largest software company by revenue, one of the most valuable public companies,a and one of the most valuable brands globally. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the rise of personal computers through software like Windows, and has since expanded to Internet services, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, video gaming, and other fields. The study aims to determine the recommended phase 2 dose and assess preliminary efficacy. The primary objectives of this clinical trial includes assessments of safety, tolerability, and preliminary antitumor activity.
What Are the Implications for Future Clinical Practice?
Microsoft is frequently accused of using anticompetitive tactics and abusing its monopolistic power. Department of Justice found that was used internally by Microsoft to describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences to strongly disadvantage competitors. Internal Revenue Service was alleging that the company owed the U.S. $28.9 billion in past taxes, plus penalties related to mis-allocation of corporate profits over a decade.
In March 2024, Inflection AI’s cofounders Mustafa Suleyman and Karen Simonyan announced their departure from the company in order to start Microsoft AI, with Microsoft acqui-hiring nearly the entirety of its 70-person vegas casino workforce. On November 20, 2023, Satya Nadella announced that Sam Altman, who had been ousted as CEO of OpenAI just days earlier, and Greg Brockman, who had resigned as president, would join Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team. In January 2023, CEO Satya Nadella announced Microsoft would lay off some 10,000 employees. In December 2022, Microsoft announced a new 10-year deal with the London Stock Exchange Group for products including Microsoft Azure; Microsoft acquired around 4% of LSEG as part of the deal. Microsoft has not released statements regarding Activision’s recent legal controversies regarding employee abuse, but reports have alleged that Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, a major target of the controversy, will leave the company after the acquisition is finalized. On January 18, 2022, Microsoft announced the acquisition of American video game developer and holding company Activision Blizzard in an all-cash deal worth $68.7 billion.
1994: Windows and Office
In May 2016, Microsoft announced another 1,850 job cuts mostly in its Nokia mobile phone division. In July 2015, Microsoft announced another 7,800 job cuts in the next several months. In October 2014, Microsoft revealed that it was almost done with eliminating 18,000 employees, which was its largest-ever layoff sweep.
2007: Foray into the Web, Windows 95, Windows XP, and Xbox
Future larger-scale, multi-center trials will be needed to validate these findings and further refine treatment strategies for patients with advanced ICC. Most patients (about 80% in Arm A and 77% in Arm B) had stage IV disease, underscoring the advanced nature of the study population. Most patients are diagnosed at advanced stages when surgical intervention is no longer viable, resulting in dismal survival rates of just 4-6 months without treatment. A groundbreaking phase 2 clinical trial has revealed encouraging results in treating advanced intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) using two different combination therapies.
CCA Clinical Trials Focused on IDH Mutations
In September 2014, Microsoft laid off 2,100 people, including 747 people in the Seattle–Redmond area, where the company is headquartered. Another study, released by the Open Source Development Labs, claimed that the Microsoft studies were « simply outdated and one-sided » and their survey concluded that the TCO of Linux was lower due to Linux administrators managing more servers on average and other reasons. The company is run by a board of directors made up of mostly company outsiders, as is customary for publicly traded companies.
- In November 2018, Microsoft agreed to supply 100,000 Microsoft HoloLens headsets to the United States military in order to « increase lethality by enhancing the ability to detect, decide and engage before the enemy. » In November 2018, Microsoft introduced Azure Multi-Factor Authentication for Microsoft Azure.
- Intune for Education is a new cloud-based application and device management service for the education sector.
- In June 2024, Microsoft faced a potential EU fine after regulators accused it of abusing market power by bundling its Teams video-conferencing app with its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 software.
Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service 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. Members of the board of directors as of December 2023 are Satya Nadella, Reid Hoffman, Hugh Johnston, Teri List, Sandi Peterson, Penny Pritzker, Carlos Rodriguez, Charles Scharf, John W. Stanton, John W. Thompson, Emma Walmsley and Padmasree Warrior. Microsoft is one of only two U.S.-based companies that have a prime credit rating of AAA.
On July 19, 2024, a global IT outage impacted Microsoft services, affecting businesses, airlines, and financial institutions worldwide. Meanwhile, that month, the company announced a subscription offering of artificial intelligence for small businesses via Copilot Pro. However, the plan was short-lived, as Altman was subsequently reinstated as OpenAI’s CEO and Brockman rejoined the company amid pressure from OpenAI’s employees and investors on its board.
The « Connector » does not compete with the public bus system and works with it to provide a cohesive transportation network not just for its employees but also for the public. In 2013, Microsoft agreed to buy power generated by a Texas wind project to power one of its data centers. Bill Gates claims the cap on H1B visas makes it difficult to hire employees for the company, stating « I’d certainly get rid of the H1B cap » in 2005. Helpful people can be elected by peers or Microsoft employees for Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) status, which entitles them to a sort of special social status and possibilities for awards and other benefits. Free technical support is traditionally provided through online Usenet newsgroups, and CompuServe in the past, monitored by Microsoft employees; there can be several newsgroups for a single product. Microsoft noted in a blog post that the attack might have been prevented if the accounts in question had enabled multi-factor authentication, a defensive measure which is widely recommended in the industry, including by Microsoft itself.
On August 20, 20 Microsoft employees and their allies were arrested after refusing to disperse from a protest on Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington campus. After the disruptions at these events, Microsoft contacted the FBI in search of assistance in surveilling its pro-Palestinian employees and their allies. Subsequently, two employees interrupted AI executive Mustafa Suleyman at a speaking event on April 4, 2025, in protest at the company’s support of Israel. In May 2025, Microsoft issued an unsigned statement confirming that these services had been made available to Israel, while denying that these tools were employed during the massacre of the people of Gaza. The employees, part of the group No Azure for Apartheid, sought to address the company’s involvement in the Israeli government’s use of its technology.
It created one of the world’s largest private bus systems, the « Connector », to transport people from outside the company; for on-campus transportation, the « Shuttle Connect » uses a large fleet of hybrid cars to save fuel. Microsoft’s timeline for phasing out brominated flame retardant (BFRs) and phthalates in all products was 2012 but its commitment to phasing out PVC is not clear. Microsoft is ranked on the 17th place in Greenpeace’s Guide to Greener Electronics (16th Edition) that ranks 18 electronics manufacturers according to its policies on toxic chemicals, recycling, and climate change. At the time, data centers consumed up to 2% of all global electricity, and this amount was projected to increase. In 2015, Microsoft established its own parental leave policy to allow 12 weeks off for parental leave with an additional 8 weeks for the parent who gave birth. In August 2018, Microsoft implemented a policy for all companies providing subcontractors to require 12 weeks of paid parental leave to each employee.