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Microsoft Company

Paul Allen and Bill Gates founded Microsoft Company in 1975. Microsoft is the best-known American company involved in software production. Microsoft’s wealth and power is growing up for years. It is a giant company. Microsoft’s $25 billion market value tops that of Ford, General Motors. Some time ago, Microsoft dominated the PC market with its MS-DOS operating system, the basic software that let the computer understand your commands and carry them out, appeared in the beginning of the 80-s. MS-DOS ran on 90% of the world’s IBM and IBM-clone computers. Then , Microsoft extended that presence with releasing of Windows which is probably the most important and popular operating system in the world. And now it dominates the market.

Firstly, Microsoft released Windows ’95 in 1995. It was a graphic interface environment that ran on top of MS-DOS and replaced DOS in future versions. Then, Microsoft released Widows’98, Windows NT, Windows Millennium, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

Microsoft also supplies about 50 % of the world’s applications. Among them, there are three well-known Office Packs; they are called Microsoft Office programs such as Excel(spreadsheets), Microsoft Word(word processing), Access(data bases), Outlook Express (e-mail). There were releases in 1997, 2000, 2002, when appeared Microsoft Office XP. Microsoft is also in the market of networking, multimedia and even books. And as an earlier supporter of the Macintosh computer, Microsoft virtually owns the Mac application market.

It has been calculated that Microsoft controls 80-85 % of the entire PC software industry. The company has hundreds of products and thousands of employees, making it one of the largest companies. Many of the company’s shareholders are now millionaires and a few including Bill Gates and Paul Allen are billionaires. Microsoft is no doubt the fastest growing company in the PC software industry.

І. Answer the questions:

1.Who founded the company?

2.When was the company founded?

3.What does the company produce?

4.How many Windows operating systems did Microsoft release?

5.Who are the shareholders of the company?

6.How many people work for the company?

ІІ. Make up questions to the answers.

1.Paul Allen and Bill Gates founded the company in 1975.

2.Microsoft is the best-known American company involved in software production.

3.Microsoft released Widows’98, Windows NT, Windows Millennium, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

4.Microsoft is also in the market of networking, multimedia and even books.

5.Many of the company’s shareholders are millionaires now.

6.Microsoft is the fastest growing company in the PC software industry