Microsoft created Windows and Azure and is commonly listed among the world's largest companies by market capitalization.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft in 1975. The company first became widely known for software for personal computers, including the MS-DOS operating system and later Microsoft Windows. Windows helped establish the graphical personal-computer interface as a standard for millions of users.
Microsoft expanded beyond operating systems into Office productivity software, enterprise tools, gaming, search, and cloud computing. Azure, launched in 2010, became a major cloud platform competing with Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud.
Microsoft is sometimes confused with the computer maker IBM, which helped popularize the IBM PC but is a separate company. Microsoft also owns Xbox and acquired LinkedIn in 2016. Its public stock ticker is MSFT.