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Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) is the world's largest software company with over sixty thousand employees and headquarters in various countries as of May 2004. It was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, and is headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA. Microsoft develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for various computing devices. Its most popular products are the Microsoft Windows operating system and Microsoft Office families of products, each of which has achieved near ubiquity in the desktop computer market.
The next version of Microsoft's flagship product, Windows Vista, is planned to ship in 2006, more than 5 years after its previous consumer Operating System. Planned features include better user interaction with devices (such as media players) and an enhanced user interface called "Aero", a PDF-like format code-named Metro, a new search system called Search, and several others. Microsoft also intends to release a successor to the Xbox, the Xbox 360, which it plans on integrating with Windows Vista and Windows XP Media Center to make it an entertainment hub rather than just a videogame console.
Recent managerial comments from Microsoft suggest that the company is attempting to move upmarket by positioning its products as "high value" rather than "low cost". Steve Ballmer said in 2002, "We are actually having to learn how to say, 'We may have a high price on this one, but look at the additional value and how that value actually leads to a lower cost of ownership despite the fact that our price may be higher.'"