Examine the reasons for the success of Microsoft and evaluate the Essay

Examine the reasons for the success of Microsoft and evaluate the impact Microsoft has had on graduate recruitment in the USA - Essay Example Currently, it boasts of a top-tier position among the top companies globally. It comes in third in ranking on the FT Global 500 list. In addition, it rakes in revenue amounting to more than $ 36 billion dollars annually (Stanek, 2006:42). 1. History The Microsoft Corporation is an American business venture dealing in the business of inventing computer software and programs, and in the manufacture of computer-related hardware (Pralahad, 2008:37). Currently, the venture’s shares are on trade at the NASDAQ stock market in New York City, in America. The conglomerate has a global presence, and owns branches and offices in more than seventy nations. Though the main idea behind its start was to produce operating systems to power the Altair 8000 computer system, the business went on to invent significant breakthroughs in the software market. The first evidence of the company’s potential to change the world was its introduction of the MS-DOS in the early 1980s. Soon after, it pr oduced the Windows system in the early 1990s. Through the dominating of the computer market base, and already enjoying a virtual solo monopoly on the global business and home-based personal computer market, it was in an adequate spot to produce software applicatios that would support its systems. The company fully exploited this opportunity, gaining vital ground in the market. This led to the venture releasing the Microsoft Office, which was a huge success at the business sector. In addition, the company also participated in the formulation of MSN, an online-based search engine and news database (Barry, 2011:113). 2. The 1980s The Microsoft Company came into being because of the idea of William Gates in conjunction with Paul Allen. Initially, the venture offered only one product. It employed only three workers, and, in its first year of business, raked in only about $ 25,000 dollars in sales. Gates and his partner had decided to base their company in Alberquque, New Mexico, in order to access the MITS Computer Company easily, which had helped in constructing their Altair microcomputer equipment. Microsoft’s initial product was the Microsoft BASIC, the then programming dialect of the Altair. The Microsoft BASIC was an improvement of BASIC, which was a mainframe computer dialect that the two partners had gotten wind of while in high school in Seattle (Shelly, 2009:97). As time went by, the company made major breakthroughs in the computer field. Not only did the company improve BASIC vastly, but it also modified other present computer languages for their use. In 1977, the company unveiled a modified version of FORTRAN, and quickly followed it with another improved version of COBOL in 1978. By the dawn of 1979, the company had successfully managed to relocate its operations to Washington. At the time, the venture boasted of about $ 3 million dollars in annual income. In addition, it had raised its employee figures to around 30 workers (Todd, 2011:67). The o perating system is a major factor of all computers. In addition to it being the lifeline of the computer, it has also been the major influential factor behind Microsoft’s success. In 1981, the company unveiled the DOS 1.0 operating system for use by the IBM computer. This move proved to be a major landmark in the company’