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One of the primary beneficiaries and essential contributors to the IT
revolution was the Microsoft Corporation. Since becoming a publicly traded

corporation in 1986, Microsoft has dominated the market for office
application suites and computer operating systems. The stock price rose
from its offering value of $21 a share (roughly $0.08 when corrected for
stock splits) to a peak of about $50 in late 1999 (again, split adjusted), and it
is currently around $30. Revenues increased from $198 million in 1986 to
$44,282 million in 2006. (Hulten,2010) As a result, the business became
known as "Microsoft," one of the most well-known worldwide brand names.
This astounding expansion is comparable to the equally astounding
expansion of information technology. While computer investment increased
from $34 billion to $94 billion during the same time, business software
investment expenditures increased from $26 billion in 1986 to $227 billion in
2007. Microsoft was at the forefront of these changes, capitalizing on the
surge in software demand brought about by the structural shift towards IT.
Nevertheless, the Microsoft story is not just about the spike in software
demand. Microsoft made significant investments in supply-side growth
engines such as organizational development, sales and marketing, and
product research and development. The total amount invested in these
intangible assets by 2006 was $66 billion. (Hulten,2010).
This paper tells the tale of this $66 billion, which is necessary to tell because
this type of capital is overlooked by traditional accounting methods.
Expenses for product development and marketing are not recognized by
current financial accounting as investments in the company's future, and
Microsoft's 2006 conventional balance sheet shows just $70 billion in assets
and $40 billion in shareholder equity.
The main concern in the company Microsoft is how to fit into various market
segments, Microsoft’s goal is to be there for all, its key product category is
covering all variety including the Product The Windows operating system,
which has progressed from desktop versions (Windows 95, Windows XP, etc.)
to more recent versions (Windows 10, Windows 11), is Microsoft's main
service. Most personal computers across the world are powered by the
operating system, One of the company's most important products, the
Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook) is utilized
extensively in business, school, and personal settings. Office gradually
shifted from software packages that were sold on physical discs to cloud-
based services such as Office 365, which is now known as Microsoft 365.
(stross,1996), Xbox consoles and their related systems as, Xbox cloud
gaming and Xbox live streaming, And Microsoft offers much more including
(Surface devices, office, etc.).
Microsoft target market is very broad which provides all kinds of variety
depending on the users needs. it provides products for each consumer, such
as word and PowerPoint for students, linked in, excel and outlook for
employees, Xbox for gamers and many more for everyone’s needs, for
example one of the most used Microsoft’s cloud services is Dynamic 365 as
that small and medium-sized businesses use it to manage operations and
boost productivity. Big enterprises rely on Microsoft's corporate products,
such Azure and Power BI, for business intelligence, cloud infrastructure,
personal use, and digital transformation and transition. Developers and IT
professionals use tools like Visual Studio, GitHub, and Azure DevOps to
design and manage applications. Microsoft also offers the public sectors
scalable, secure data protection and compliance solutions.
Microsoft described a business that had effectively employed knowledge

inputs to generate knowledge outputs. It's a tale of innovation propelled by
methodical investments in intellectual capital, and it might be applied to
other prosperous tech firms or perhaps the information revolution in general.
Over the past three decades, the "Third Industrial Revolution" has been at
the forefront of American economic progress and will likely remain so for
some time to come. The Microsoft story serves as an example of how crucial
knowledge-based intangible capital investment is to be maintaining this
growth.(Stross,1996).
References:
Hulten, C. R. (2010). The Microsoft story: The tale of a $66 billion investment
in intangible capital. Journal of Productivity Analysis, 33(2), 1-14.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11123-010-0205-9
Stross, R. E. (1996). The Microsoft way: The real story of how the company
outsmarts its competitors. Addison-Wesley.

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One of the primary beneficiaries and essential contributors to the IT

revolution was the Microsoft Corporation. Since becoming a publicly traded

Microsoft described a business that had effectively employed knowledge

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