Microsoft is the company Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded in 1975, later becoming one of the world’s largest companies by market capitalization.
The pair established the company in Albuquerque, New Mexico, initially to develop and sell software for the Altair 8800 microcomputer. Microsoft’s name combines “microcomputer” and “software.” Its early success came from licensing programming languages and, later, the MS-DOS operating system to IBM for its personal computer.
Microsoft expanded into Windows, Office, enterprise software, cloud computing, gaming, and hardware. Its Azure cloud business and large software franchises helped make it a frequent leader in global market-cap rankings.
A common mix-up is confusing Microsoft with IBM, whose IBM PC helped popularize personal computing but used Microsoft’s operating system. Microsoft’s original business was software rather than manufacturing the computers that ran it.