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In 2013, Microsoft agreed to buy power generated by a Texas wind project to power one of its data centers. At the time, data centers consumed up to 2% of all global electricity, and this amount was projected to increase. Noted for its internal lexicon, the expression “eating your own dog food” is used to describe the policy of using pre-release and beta versions of products inside Microsoft to test them in “real-world” situations. 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.

On February 28, 2025, Microsoft announced that Skype would be shutting down on May 5, 2025, to streamline its focus on Microsoft Teams. Microsoft also announced relaunch of its controversial tool, Recall, in November 2024 after addressing privacy concerns. Microsoft stated that the underlying cause had been fixed but acknowledged ongoing residual impacts on some Microsoft 365 apps and services. Despite CrowdStrike’s CEO George Kurtz clarifying that the issue was not a cyberattack, the incident had widespread consequences, leading to delays in air travel, financial transactions, and medical services globally. The outage was traced back to a flawed update of CrowdStrike’s cybersecurity software, which resulted in Microsoft systems crashing and causing disruptions across various sectors.

Microsoft Office 2007, released at the same time, featured a “Ribbon” user interface which was a significant departure from its predecessors. On October 25, 2001, Microsoft released Windows XP, unifying the mainstream and NT lines of OS under the NT codebase. With a few exceptions of new companies, like Netscape, Microsoft was the only major and established company that acted fast enough to be a part of the World Wide Web practically from the start. It shipped on July 21, 1993, with a new modular kernel and the 32-bit Win32 application programming interface (API), making it easier to port from 16-bit (MS-DOS-based) Windows. In 1990, the Federal Trade Commission examined Microsoft for possible collusion due to the partnership with IBM, marking the beginning of more than a decade of legal clashes with the government. Microsoft released its version of OS/2 to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) on April 2, 1987.

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Amid the layoffs, Microsoft also closed its office in Pakistan and laid off its employees there as part of its move toward a software-as-a-service and AI operating model. In July 2025, Microsoft announced another round of layoffs, cutting approximately 9,000 employees in its largest workforce reduction in over two years. In November 2018, the company won a $480 million military contract with the U.S. government to bring augmented reality (AR) headset technology into the weapon repertoires of American soldiers.

As of January 2014, Microsoft’s market capitalization stood at $314B, making it the 8th-largest company in the world by market capitalization. On July 20, 2012, Microsoft posted its first quarterly loss ever, despite earning record revenues for the quarter and fiscal year, with a net loss of $492 million due to a writedown related to the advertising company aQuantive, which had been acquired for $6.2 billion back in 2007. Though the company had subsequent increases in dividend payouts, the price of Microsoft’s stock remained steady for years. When Microsoft went public and launched its initial public offering (IPO) in 1986, the opening stock price was $21; after the trading day, the price closed at $27.75.

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• By default, offline maps are downloaded on your device’s internal storage, but you can also download them on an SD card.
• 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.
• The company has also been criticized for the use of permatemp employees (employees employed for years as “temporary”, and therefore without medical benefits), the use of forced retention tactics, which means that employees would be sued if they tried to leave.
• In June 2023, Microsoft released Azure Quantum Elements to run molecular simulations and calculations in computational chemistry and materials science using a combination of AI, high-performance computing and quantum computing.
• 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 company has a history of antitrust battles in the U.S. and Europe, with over €2 billion in EU fines previously imposed for similar abuses.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, announced that it had donated an initial batch of supplies, including 15,000 protection goggles, infrared thermometers, medical caps, and protective suits, to healthcare workers in Seattle, with further aid to come. The company was the official jersey sponsor of Finland’s national basketball team at EuroBasket 2015, a major 1xbet download sponsor of the Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT (2017–2020) and a sponsor of the Renault F1 Team (2016–2020). Microsoft’s logo with the tagline “Your potential. Our passion.”—below the main corporate name—is based on a slogan Microsoft used in 2008. The company’s retail locations are part of a greater strategy to help build a connection with its consumers. As per company executives, Microsoft had been on the lookout for a flagship location since 2009.

Microsoft provides information about reported bugs in its software to intelligence agencies of the United States government, prior to the public release of the fix. In May 2025, Microsoft announced that it is laying off more than 6,000 employees, around three percent of the company’s entire workforce. In the same month, Microsoft acquired Australia-based video editing software company Clipchamp.