Microsoft

Industry : Computer software
                 Online services
                 Video Gaming

Founded : Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
On date : April 4, 1975
Founder(s) : Bill Gates, Paul Allen
Area served : Worldwide


Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington that develops, manufactures, licenses and supports a wide range of products and services related to computing. It is one of the world's most valuable companies.
Microsoft was established to develop and sell basic interpreters for the Altair 8800. It rose to dominate the personal computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems.
As of 2012, Microsoft is market dominant in both the PC operating system and office suite markets (the latter with Microsoft Office). The company also produces a wide range of other software for desktops and servers, and is active in areas including internet search (with Bing), the video game industry (with the Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles), the digital services market (through MSN), and mobile phones (via the Windows Phone OS). In June 2012, Microsoft announced that it would be entering the PC vendor market for the first time, with the launch of the Microsoft Surface tablet computer.

Games for Windows is a brand owned by Microsoft and introduced in 2006, with the release of the Windows Vista.The brand represents a standardized technical certification program and online service for Windows games, bringing a measure of regulation to the PC game market in much the same way that console manufacturers regulate their platforms.
Some Games for Windows titles have access to Microsoft's Live network for online play and other features, including voice chat, messaging and friends lists, accessed from an in-game menu called the "Guide". Users can log in with their Xbox Live gamertags to gain Achievements and play games and chat across platforms.

Tray and Play is a technology developed by Microsoft for Windows Vista. It allows users to put the game disc into an optical disc drive and start playing almost immediately, while the game installs itself in the background and streams off the disc with minimal or zero caching, just like on a game console.

Games for Windows – Live is an online gaming service for Games for Windows-branded PC titles. It enables Windows PCs to connect to the Live service, which will eventually include other devices including Windows Phone and Zune. Users, each with a unique Gamertag, the Microsoft username service for gaming that began with the Xbox Live, are able to play online, keep track of their friends' status, send and receive messages, gain and keep track of Achievements and associated Gamerscore, voice chat across platforms, and much more. Some games allow for cross-platform play, such as Shadowrun, putting Windows players against Xbox 360 players.

Games for Windows – Live features

• Achievements earned during gameplay.
• Gamerscores amounting the total of a user's achievement points.
• Rep voted by other users preferring or avoiding the user. Rep defaults to five stars over time after the user has been preferred by at least one other user.
• Friends list displaying the user's chosen friends of up to 100.
• Recent players list displaying the last 50 players the user has met.
• Complaint system allowing users to file reports of other users that have broken Live Terms of Use.
• Games for Windows Marketplace offering Games on Demand, downloadable content, music and movies.
• Private chat via Voice and text.
• Multiplayer gameplay via Games for Windows – Live.
• Matchmaking depending on the user's cumulative gamerscore, rep, location, language and gamer zone.
• Family settings controlling younger users' exposure to other users.
• Game Room virtual arcade space offering a library of classic retro games.
• Cross-platform gameplay with Xbox 360