Microsoft (MSFT): Company Overview, Stock, Financials & Latest News

Quick Facts

What Is Microsoft?

Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology company that develops, licenses, and sells software, cloud services, devices, and online platforms used by consumers, businesses, and governments around the world. Its best known products include the Windows operating system, the Microsoft 365 productivity suite (formerly Office), the Azure cloud computing platform, the Teams communication app, the professional network LinkedIn, the developer platform GitHub, and the Xbox gaming ecosystem.

Microsoft is widely considered the largest software company in the world by revenue and one of the “Big Five” American technology giants, alongside Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta. It has repeatedly traded places with Apple and Nvidia as the most valuable publicly traded company, with a market capitalization that has topped $3 trillion during periods of strong cloud and AI demand.

Over the past decade, Microsoft has transformed from a company built primarily around Windows and desktop Office software into a cloud first, AI first business. Azure now competes directly with Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud for enterprise workloads, and Microsoft’s deep partnership and investment in OpenAI has placed it at the center of the generative AI boom through products like Copilot, which is embedded across Windows, Office, GitHub, and Azure.

Company History

Microsoft was founded on April 4, 1975, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, by childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen. The pair had grown up together in Seattle and bonded over an early interest in computers at Lakeside School. After seeing a magazine cover featuring the Altair 8800, one of the first personal computers, Gates and Allen wrote a version of the BASIC programming language for the machine without ever having tested it on real hardware, then flew to New Mexico to demonstrate it to the Altair’s maker, MITS. The demonstration succeeded, Gates dropped out of Harvard, and the two formed a partnership originally called Micro-Soft, later shortened to Microsoft.

By the end of 1978, Microsoft’s sales had already topped $1 million, and in 1979 the company relocated to Bellevue, Washington, closer to Gates and Allen’s hometown of Seattle. The defining moment of Microsoft’s early history came in 1980, when IBM approached the company to supply an operating system for its first personal computer. Microsoft did not yet have one, so Allen negotiated the purchase of an existing system that became the basis for MS-DOS, which Microsoft then licensed to IBM and, crucially, to other computer makers as well. That licensing model helped MS-DOS become the dominant operating system of the 1980s.

Microsoft went public in 1986 at $21 per share, a moment that famously created three billionaires and thousands of millionaires among employees. The company introduced Windows the same era, and by the 1990s Windows had captured well over 90 percent of the personal computer operating system market, making Microsoft the most valuable company in the world for a period and drawing a landmark United States antitrust case in the late 1990s over its market dominance.

Steve Ballmer succeeded Gates as CEO in 2000 and led Microsoft through the Xbox launch, the Skype and Nokia acquisitions, and a period in which the company was often seen as slow to adapt to mobile computing. Satya Nadella took over as Microsoft’s third CEO in 2014 and pursued an aggressive cloud first, mobile first strategy centered on Azure, acquiring LinkedIn in 2016 and GitHub in 2018 to expand Microsoft’s reach among professionals and software developers.

The most recent chapter of Microsoft’s history has centered on artificial intelligence. Microsoft’s multi year, multi billion dollar partnership with OpenAI, deepened after 2023, has made Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure and Copilot products central to the generative AI wave, and in January 2024 Microsoft briefly overtook Apple as the world’s most valuable public company. The company marked its 50th anniversary in April 2025 and enters its next chapter investing heavily, close to $190 billion in calendar 2026 alone, in data center and AI infrastructure capacity.

Founders

Microsoft was founded by two people: Bill Gates and Paul Allen, both natives of Seattle who met and became friends as students at Lakeside School.

Gates and Allen’s very first employee was their high school collaborator Ric Weiland. Microsoft’s founding partnership was reportedly split 64 to 36 in Gates’s favor, reflecting his larger role in writing the company’s early software, and both founders remained connected to the company for decades after stepping back from daily operations.

CEO

Microsoft’s current Chairman and Chief Executive Officer is Satya Nadella, who took the role in February 2014 after previously leading Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise division. Nadella joined Microsoft in 1992 and spent more than two decades in engineering and leadership roles before becoming CEO.

Nadella is widely credited with reviving Microsoft’s growth and market value through a cloud first, mobile first strategy that made Azure central to the company’s business, along with major acquisitions of LinkedIn, GitHub, and Activision Blizzard. Under his leadership, Microsoft has become one of the primary infrastructure providers for the AI industry through its Azure platform and its deep investment in OpenAI, and the company reclaimed the title of world’s most valuable public company in January 2024.

Past CEOs

• Bill Gates, co-founder and CEO from 1975 to 2000, built Microsoft into the dominant force in personal computer software.
• Steve Ballmer, CEO from 2000 to 2014, expanded Microsoft into gaming, mobile, and enterprise software while overseeing major acquisitions including Skype and Nokia’s device business.

Headquarters

Microsoft is headquartered in Redmond, Washington, part of the greater Seattle metropolitan area. The company moved from Albuquerque to nearby Bellevue in 1979 and then to its current Redmond campus in 1986, the same year it went public.

The Redmond campus has grown into a sprawling corporate headquarters housing tens of thousands of employees, and Microsoft has continued expanding it with a major modernization project in recent years. Beyond Redmond, Microsoft operates offices, data centers, and research facilities across the United States and in dozens of countries worldwide, including large scale Azure data center regions built specifically to support growing AI and cloud workloads.

Business Segments

Microsoft reports its financial results across three operating segments.

Intelligent Cloud has become Microsoft’s fastest growing segment by far, driven almost entirely by Azure. In fiscal Q3 2026, Intelligent Cloud revenue reached $34.7 billion, up 30 percent year over year, with Azure and other cloud services growing 40 percent on its own, the strongest growth rate of any major segment at the company.

Products and Services

Microsoft’s product lineup spans operating systems, productivity software, cloud infrastructure, developer tools, hardware, and gaming.

• Windows: The personal computer operating system that remains a foundation of Microsoft’s business and brand recognition.
• Microsoft 365: The subscription bundle covering Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and the Copilot AI assistant for commercial and consumer users.
• Azure: Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, offering infrastructure, AI, storage, and database services to businesses and developers worldwide.
• LinkedIn: The professional networking and recruiting platform, acquired by Microsoft in 2016.
• GitHub: The leading platform for software development collaboration and version control, acquired in 2018.
• Dynamics 365: Cloud based enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management applications.
• Xbox and gaming: Console hardware, Xbox Game Pass subscriptions, and studios including Activision Blizzard, acquired in 2023.
• Surface devices: Microsoft designed laptops, tablets, and accessories.
• Copilot: Microsoft’s generative AI assistant, integrated across Windows, Microsoft 365, GitHub, and Azure.

Microsoft also provides developer tools such as Visual Studio, databases including SQL Server, and low code business tools through the Power Platform, sold through direct enterprise sales teams, cloud marketplaces, retail partners, and online channels.

Revenue Breakdown

Microsoft’s revenue is now split almost evenly between its Productivity and Business Processes and Intelligent Cloud segments, with More Personal Computing making up a smaller and slower growing share of the total.

Within Intelligent Cloud, Azure and other cloud services are the clear growth engine, expanding 40 percent year over year in fiscal Q3 2026 versus roughly flat to slightly declining revenue in parts of More Personal Computing, such as Windows OEM licensing and Xbox content. Geographically, Microsoft generates revenue from customers across North America, Europe, and Asia, with commercial cloud and enterprise software adopted by organizations of nearly every size and industry worldwide.

Financial Performance

Microsoft’s financial results have shown steady double digit growth for several years running, with growth accelerating recently as Azure and AI related demand outpace the rest of the business.

Fiscal Q3 2026 Highlights

Microsoft’s fiscal Q4 2026 guidance calls for revenue of $86.7 billion to $87.8 billion, with Azure growth expected to remain near 39 to 40 percent in constant currency. Management has repeatedly flagged that Azure remains capacity constrained, meaning demand for cloud and AI infrastructure is currently running ahead of Microsoft’s ability to build data centers fast enough, a major reason behind the company’s plan to spend roughly $190 billion on capital expenditures in calendar 2026, up 61 percent from the prior year.

Microsoft’s AI business, which includes Azure AI services and Copilot, has grown extremely quickly, reaching an annual revenue run rate above $37 billion in fiscal Q3 2026, up 123 percent year over year. The company also holds a significant investment stake in OpenAI, which has produced large, sometimes volatile swings in reported net income depending on OpenAI’s own quarterly results.

Stock Information

Microsoft trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol MSFT and is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq 100. It is consistently one of the two or three largest companies in the world by market capitalization, regularly trading places with Apple and Nvidia for the top spot.

Microsoft shares have pulled back from their 52 week high amid broader market concerns about the pace and cost of AI infrastructure spending across the technology sector, with the stock down roughly 20 percent from its peak at points earlier in 2026. Even so, most analysts continue to view Microsoft as a comparatively steady, diversified way to gain exposure to enterprise cloud and AI demand, given its mix of subscription software, cloud infrastructure, and gaming revenue.

Dividends

Microsoft pays a quarterly cash dividend, currently set at $0.91 per share, and has increased its dividend every year for more than two decades, making it a well established dividend growth stock as well as a growth technology company.

Microsoft’s dividend is comfortably covered by both earnings and free cash flow, leaving significant room for continued increases even as the company simultaneously funds massive AI data center capital spending and share repurchases. In fiscal Q3 2026 alone, Microsoft returned $10.2 billion to shareholders through dividends and buybacks combined.

Competitors

Microsoft competes across several very different markets at once, from cloud infrastructure to productivity software to gaming, which means its competitor list is broader than almost any other technology company.

Amazon Web Services remains the largest cloud infrastructure provider by market share, with Azure in a strong second place and Google Cloud third, according to most industry trackers. Microsoft’s advantage in this three way race comes largely from bundling Azure with its dominant enterprise software franchises, Windows Server, Microsoft 365, and Dynamics, giving it deep existing relationships with corporate IT departments that AWS and Google Cloud must win from scratch.

Recent News

Because Microsoft is a fast moving cloud and AI stock, always check a live financial news source or Microsoft’s investor relations site for the most current announcements before making any investment decision.

Frequently Asked Questions