Microsoft Corporation began in 1975, when Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded the company. Its earliest business centered on developing and selling a version of the BASIC programming language for the Altair 8800 microcomputer.
The founders originally used the name Micro-Soft, combining “microcomputer” and “software.” The company was established in Albuquerque, New Mexico, before moving its headquarters to the Seattle area, where the personal-computer software industry was expanding rapidly.
Microsoft later became a major supplier of operating systems through MS-DOS and Windows, then broadened into enterprise software, cloud computing, gaming, and hardware. Its market capitalization reflects the value investors assign to the whole corporation, not only Windows. Microsoft’s public shares trade under the ticker MSFT.