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1. Microsoft originally started as Micro-soft. The hyphen was removed in 1976.
2. The company was founded in New Mexico in 1975, moved to Bellevue in 1979 and settled in at Redmond headquarters in 1986.
3. The company only brought in $16,000 in its first year. Four years later, it was pulling in $1 million.
4. In 1981 the company bought Quick and Dirty Operating System (QDOS) for $50,000. Renamed MS DOS, it was licensed to IBM for the first PC.
5. Before the marketing people got hold of it, Windows was going to be called "Interface Manager."
6. In 2009, revenues equaled more than $58.43 billion.
7. In April 2009 Microsoft reported its first loss in 23 years.
8. Microsoft estimates that 95 percent of its revenue stems from partner activity.
9. Number of partners in the Microsoft Partner Program: 390,000.
10. The corporate suits in Redmond did some organizational shuffling, sending longtime channel chief Allison Watson over to the U.S. Business & Marketing organization.
11. Watson will essentially swap positions with Jon Roskill, previously in marketing, who will take over as corporate vice president of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group.
12. Microsoft last month announced that it is now officially retiring its old partner competency metrics with the rollout of the new Microsoft Partner Network.
13. Microsoft employs more than 88,000 people worldwide.
14. The company has acquired nearly 150 companies in its more than three decades of operation.
15. Last year Microsoft announced that it surpassed its 10,000th patent.
16. Microsoft spends nearly half of its legal budget on patent cases.
17. In 2004, former Windows guru Jim Allchin wrote a memo blasting development leadership, stating ‘we lost our way’ with development of what would eventually become Vista.
18. He wrote: "I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft."
19. More than 2,600 customers participated in user research and usability studies for Windows 7.
20. The Office 2010 beta program had more than 9 million downloads.
21. That's more than six times the size of the 2007 Microsoft Office beta program.
22. Microsoft found that 75 percent of Office 2010 beta users said they planned to buy Office 2010 within six months.
23. Many analysts say that SharePoint integration with office is this latest iteration's biggest differentiator.
24. The Radicati Group expects Windows SharePoint Services to grow by an average annual rate of 7 percent through 2013.
25. In June Apple's market capitalization beat out Microsoft's—proof to many that Apple is more valuable than Microsoft.
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