The company is planning to upgrade its Mountain View, California, campus on a grand scale. Additional offices are located in Bellevue and Issaquah, Washington (90,000 employees worldwide). It is estimated to encompass over 8 million ft2 (750,000 m2) of office space and 30,000–40,000 employees. In 2023 Microsoft consumed 24 TWh of electricity, more than countries such as Iceland, Ghana, the Dominican Republic, or Tunisia. Microsoft also subsidizes regional public transport, provided by Sound Transit and King County Metro, as an incentive. It created one of the world’s largest private bus systems, the “Connector”, to transport people from outside the company; for on-campus transportation, the “Shuttle Connect” uses a large fleet of hybrid cars to save fuel.
1994: Windows and Office
In March the company also established guidelines that censor users of Office 365 from using profanity in private documents. On January 12, Microsoft released PowerShell Core 6.0 for the macOS and Linux operating systems. It aims to help enterprises protect their data as it moves between servers and devices. In June 2016, Microsoft announced a project named Microsoft Azure Information Protection. Intune for Education is a new cloud-based application and device management service for the education sector.
Aidan and Kristen announced the news that they had a daughter on social media, sharing a sweet photo of their newborn and her unusual name. Be it how-tos or the latest happenings in AI, cybersecurity, personal gadgets, platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and more; TOI Tech Desk brings the news with accuracy and authenticity.Read More The TOI Tech Desk is a dedicated team of journalists committed to delivering the latest and most relevant news from the world of technology to readers of The Times of India. The Microsoft 365 Copilot app brings together your favorite apps in one intuitive platform that keeps your data secure with enterprise data protection.
In June 2024, Microsoft announced it would be laying off 1,000 employees from the company’s mixed reality and Azure cloud computing divisions. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the rise of personal computers through software like Windows, and has since expanded to Internet services, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, video gaming, and other fields. According to the complaint and media reports, Microsoft’s cloud services may have been used to store or process surveillance-related data. The probe scrutinized Microsoft’s bundling of cloud services with products like Office and security tools, as well as its growing AI presence through its partnership with OpenAI. In 2011, Greenpeace released a report rating the top ten big brands in cloud computing on the sources of electricity for their data centers. In May 2025, Microsoft announced that it is laying off more than 6,000 employees, around three percent of the company’s entire workforce.
Developed in part by researchers from Kindai University, the water pump mechanisms use artificial intelligence to count the number of fish on a conveyor belt, analyze the number of fish, and deduce the effectiveness of water flow from the data the fish provide. In August 2018, Microsoft released two projects called Microsoft AccountGuard and Defending Democracy. On June 4, 2018, Microsoft officially announced the acquisition of GitHub for $7.5 billion, a deal that closed on October 26, 2018. The project is dubbed “Azure Government” and has ties to the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) surveillance program. In April the company further expressed willingness to embrace open source initiatives by announcing Azure Sphere as its own derivative of the Linux operating system.
- Its best-known software products are the Windows line of operating systems and the Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365 suite of productivity applications, which most notably include the Word word processor, Excel spreadsheet editor, and the PowerPoint presentation program.
- On February 28, 2025, Microsoft announced that Skype would be shutting down on May 5, 2025, to streamline its focus on Microsoft Teams.
- In March 2024, Inflection AI’s cofounders Mustafa Suleyman and Karen Simonyan announced their departure from the company in order to start Microsoft AI, with Microsoft acqui-hiring nearly the entirety of its 70-person workforce.
- The company is planning to upgrade its Mountain View, California, campus on a grand scale.
- To cope with the potential for an increase in demand for products and services, Microsoft opened a number of “holiday stores” across the U.S. to complement the increasing number of “bricks-and-mortar” Microsoft Stores that opened in 2012.
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Concerns were raised about Microsoft’s licensing practices potentially locking customers into its services and its AI investments possibly sidestepping regulatory oversight. In November 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) launched an investigation into Microsoft, focusing on potential antitrust violations related to its cloud computing, AI, and cybersecurity businesses. On August 20, 20 Microsoft employees and their allies were arrested after refusing to disperse from a protest on Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington campus. After the disruptions at these events, Microsoft contacted the FBI in search of assistance in surveilling its pro-Palestinian employees and their allies. In May 2025, Microsoft issued an unsigned statement confirming that these services had been made available to Israel, while denying that these tools were employed during the massacre of the people of Gaza. 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.
- Microsoft has been dominant in the IBM PC–compatible operating system market and the office software suite market since the 1990s.
- The initiative is meant to speed innovation through simple software changes in telecommunications networks, wireless networks, data centers, and other networking areas.
- 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 June 2024, Microsoft announced it would be laying off 1,000 employees from the company’s mixed reality and Azure cloud computing divisions.
As reported by several news outlets, an Irish subsidiary of Microsoft based in the Republic of Ireland declared £220 bn in profits but paid no corporation tax for the year 2020. The company is often referred to as a “Velvet Sweatshop”, a term which originated in a 1989 Seattle Times article, and later became used to describe the company by some of Microsoft’s own employees. Historically, Microsoft has also been accused of overworking employees, in many cases, leading to burnout within just a few years of joining the company. Frequently criticized are the ease of use, robustness, and security of the company’s software. On August 23, 2012, Microsoft unveiled a new corporate logo at the opening of its 23rd Microsoft store in Boston, indicating the company’s shift of focus from the classic style to the tile-centric modern interface, which it uses/will use on the Windows Phone platform, Xbox 360, Windows 8 and the upcoming Office Suites.
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To cope with the potential for an increase in demand for products and services, Microsoft opened a number of “holiday stores” across the U.S. to complement the increasing number of “bricks-and-mortar” Microsoft Stores that opened in 2012. A developer preview was released on September 13, which was subsequently replaced by a consumer preview on February 29, 2012, and released to the public in May. Following the release of Windows Phone, Microsoft undertook a gradual rebranding of its product range throughout 2011 and 2012, with the corporation’s logos, products, services, and websites adopting the principles and concepts of the Metro design language. The initiative is meant to speed innovation through simple software changes in telecommunications networks, wireless networks, data centers, and other networking areas. It launched an alliance with Nokia in 2011 and Microsoft worked closely with the company to co-develop Windows Phone, but remained partners with long-time Windows Mobile OEM HTC. Azure Services Platform, the company’s entry into the cloud computing market for Windows, launched on October 27, 2008.
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Mayo GAA ace Aidan O’Shea and his wife Kristin McKenzie-Vass have announced the joyful arrival of their first child, a daughter named Romee, in the early days of 2026. Whether you’re a seasoned gambler or a first-time visitor, Las Vegas casinos provide an unforgettable blend of excitement, elegance, and opportunity, making them a central part of the city’s legendary appeal. Las Vegas is synonymous with world-class casinos, offering a dazzling array of gaming experiences that attract millions of visitors each year.
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Kristin shared the news on her Instagram as she posted “Our best surprise yet”. Kristin McKenzie-Vass shared the news today (January 6) that she gave birth to a baby girl which the pair have called Romee. Mayo footballer Aidan O’Shea and his wife Kristin have welcomed the news of a new arrival in the household just days into the 2026 year.
In February 2019, hundreds of Microsoft employees protested the company’s war profiteering from a $480 million contract to develop virtual reality headsets for the United States Army. In December 2018, Microsoft announced Project Mu, an open source release of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) core used in Microsoft Surface and Hyper-V products. In May 2018, Microsoft partnered with 17 American intelligence agencies to develop cloud computing products. In April 2018, Microsoft released the source code for Windows File Manager under the MIT License to celebrate the program’s 20th anniversary. In May 2016, the company announced it was laying off 1,850 workers, and taking an impairment and restructuring charge of $950 million. During the summer of 2015 the company lost $7.6 billion related to its mobile-phone business, firing 7,800 employees.
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Criticism of Microsoft has followed various aspects of its products and business practices. Among grant recipients from the Asia-Pacific region are the Sri Lankan IT company Fortude, the Thailand-based Vulcan Coalition, and the Indonesian organization Kerjabilitas. Microsoft also supports initiatives through its AI for Accessibility grant program, providing funding to various global organizations that create technologies to enhance accessibility for individuals with disabilities. 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 sponsor of the Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT (2017–2020) and a sponsor of the Renault F1 Team (2016–2020). Baker stated “The new logo, in Helvetica italic typeface, has a slash between the o and s to emphasize the “soft” part of the name and convey motion and speed”.
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In April 2019, Microsoft became the third U.S. public company to be valued at over $1 trillion.b As of 2024update, Microsoft has the third-highest global brand valuation. In 2018, Microsoft became the most valuable publicly vegas casino traded company in the world, a position it has repeatedly traded with Apple in the years since. On May 30, 2025, it was reported that Microsoft’s Russian division would be preparing to file for bankruptcy, days after President Vladimir Putin stated that foreign services providers should be throttled in Russia to make way for domestic software, which included Microsoft. In September 2024, BlackRock and Microsoft announced a $30 billion fund, the Global AI Infrastructure Investment Partnership, to invest in AI infrastructure such as data centers and energy projects. In June 2024, Microsoft announced that it was building a “hyperscale data centre” in South East Leeds. Meanwhile, that month, the company announced a subscription offering of artificial intelligence for small businesses via Copilot Pro.
In April 2019, Microsoft became the third public U.S. company to be valued at over $1 trillion. Since Satya Nadella took over as CEO in 2014, the company has changed focus towards cloud computing, as well as its acquisition of LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in 2016. ‘Impressive’ Fitbit for tracking workouts slashed by 40% in limited time deal Kristin announced her pregnancy news back in July, while they were on a romantic getaway holiday to Crete.
He is suspected of being concussed up to seven times. They were inundated with sweet messages after sharing their news. They shared the good news just days into the new year with a sweet post on social media. ‘Congratulations on the birth of your beautiful daughter, such a magical time in your lives x,’ one Instagram user congratulated Kristin and Aidan.
In March 2024, Inflection AI’s cofounders Mustafa Suleyman and Karen Simonyan announced their departure from the company in order to start Microsoft AI, with Microsoft acqui-hiring nearly the entirety of its 70-person workforce. 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. In January 2023, CEO Satya Nadella announced Microsoft would lay off some 10,000 employees. In December 2022, Microsoft announced a new 10-year deal with the London Stock Exchange Group for products including Microsoft Azure; Microsoft acquired around 4% of LSEG as part of the deal. Microsoft has not released statements regarding Activision’s recent legal controversies regarding employee abuse, but reports have alleged that Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, a major target of the controversy, will leave the company after the acquisition is finalized. On January 18, 2022, Microsoft announced the acquisition of American video game developer and holding company Activision Blizzard in an all-cash deal worth $68.7 billion.
Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content. You can change your settings at any time, including withdrawing your consent, by using the toggles on the Cookie Policy, or by clicking on the manage consent button at the bottom of the screen. Consenting to these technologies will allow us and our partners to process personal data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site and show (non-) personalized ads. O’Shea, a two-time GAA All-Star and long-time stalwart of the Mayo senior football team, married Kristin in August 2024 at the Muckross Park Hotel in Killarney, County Kerry. The couple shared the happy news on social media earlier today, with Kristin posting that little Romee’s arrival was “Our best surprise yet”.