Wednesday 31 August 2016

How to save your money 8 tips.

1. Record your expenses


The first step in saving money is to know how much you’re spending. For one month, keep a record of everything you spend. That means every coffee, every newspaper and every snack you purchase for the entire month. Once you have your data, organize these numbers by category—for example, gas, groceries, mortgage and so on—and get the total amount for each.

2. Make a budget

Image result for Make a budget
Now that you have a good idea of what you spend in a month, you can build a budget to plan your spending, limit over-spending and make sure that you put money away in an emergency savings fund. Remember to include expenses that happen regularly, but not every month, like car maintenance check-ups. Find more information on creating a budget.

3. Plan on saving money

Image result for Plan on saving money
Taking into consideration your monthly expenses and earnings, create a savings category within your budget and try to make it at least 10-15 percent of your net income. If your expenses won't let you save that much, it might be time to cut back. Look for non-essentials that you can spend less on—for example, entertainment and dining out—before thinking about saving money on essentials such as your vehicle or home. Learn more money-saving tips from Bank of America.

4. Set savings goals

Setting savings goals makes it much easier to get started. Begin by deciding how long it will take to reach each goal. Some short-term goals (which can usually take 1-3 years) include:
Starting an emergency fund to cover 6 months to a year of living expenses (in case of job loss or other emergencies)
Saving money for a vacation
Saving to buy a new car
Saving to pay taxes (if they are not already deducted by your employer)
Try the Bank of America savings goal calculator to see how long it will take for you to reach your saving goal.
Long-term savings goals are often several years or even decades away and can include:
Saving for retirement
Putting money away for your child's college education
Saving for a down payment on a house or to remodel your current home

5. Decide on your priorities

Different people have different priorities when it comes to saving money, so it makes sense to decide which savings goals are most important to you. Part of this process is deciding how long you can wait to save up for a goal and how much you want to put away each month to help you reach it. As you do this for all your goals, order them by priority and set money aside accordingly in your monthly budget. Remember that setting priorities means making choices. If you want to focus on saving for retirement, some other goals might have to take a back seat while you make sure you're hitting your top targets.

6. Different savings and investment strategies for different goals

If you're saving for short-term goals, consider using these FDIC-insured deposits accounts:
A regular savings account, which is easily accessible
A high-yield savings account, which often has a higher interest rate than a standard savings account
A bank money market savings account, which has a variable interest rate that could increase as your savings grow
A CD (certificate of deposit), which locks in your money at a specific interest rate for a specific period of time
For long-term goals consider:
FDIC-insured IRAs, which are built for purposes such as retirement savings. If you’re not sure how much money you should set aside for retirement, give the Merrill Edge retirement calculator a try.
Securities, like stocks and mutual funds. These investment products are available through investment accounts with a broker-dealer (e.g. Merrill Edge). Remember that securities, such as stocks and mutual funds, are not insured by the FDIC, are not deposits or other obligations of a bank and are not guaranteed by a bank, and are subject to investment risks including the possible loss of principal invested.

7. Make saving money easier with automatic transfers

Automatic transfers to your savings account can make saving money much easier. By moving money out of your checking account, you'll be less likely to spend money you wanted to use for savings. There are many options for setting up transfers. You choose how often you want to transfer money and which accounts you want to use for the transfers. You can even split your direct deposit between your checking and savings accounts to contribute to your savings with each paycheck. Thinking of saving as a regular expense is a great way to keep on target with your savings goals.

8. Watch your savings grow

Check your progress every month. Not only will this help you stick to your personal savings plan, but it also helps you identify and fix problems quickly. With these simple ways to save money, it may even inspire you to save more and hit your goals faster.

Tuesday 30 August 2016

how to improve your personality.

In order to help all spiritual seekers who wish to make fast spiritual progress we developed these intensive spiritual workshops to provide clear practical guidance and a highly conducive environment for spiritual growth.
If you have desire to know yourself at a much deeper level, to nurture divine qualities and greatly increase the pace of your inner change then we encourage you to take the benefit of this unique opportunity.


The workshops include interactive and practical sessions to help you:


  1. Overcome personality defects and reduce ego
  2. Gain higher levels of protection from spiritual distress and learn about various self-healing methods
  3. Learn how the spiritual dimension can affect our lives
  4. Acquire tools and guidance to go to the next level of spiritual practice

If you incorporate the simple steps of spiritual practice that you will learn in this workshop, you will benefit from greater spiritual protection, peace of mind and experience fast spiritual development.

The workshop groups are kept small with around 10 attendees only, so that we can give you individual support for your spiritual practice taking into account your personality, state of mind and spiritual path. We will also provide you with all the necessary tools to further your Spiritual journey once you are back home.
If you want to see the video click here on video 

WHO IS HACKER

Hacker is a term used by some to mean "a clever programmer" and by others, especially those in popular media, to mean "someone who tries to break into computer systems."
1) Eric Raymond, compiler of The New Hacker's Dictionary, defines a hacker as a clever programmer. A "good hack" is a clever solution to a programming problem and "hacking" is the act of doing it. Raymond lists five possible characteristics that qualify one as a hacker, which we paraphrase here:

A person who enjoys learning details of a programming language or system
A person who enjoys actually doing the programming rather than just theorizing about it
A person capable of appreciating someone else's hacking
A person who picks up programming quickly
A person who is an expert at a particular programming language or system, as in "UNIX hacker"
Raymond deprecates the use of this term for someone who attempts to crack someone else's system or otherwise uses programming or expert knowledge to act maliciously. He prefers the term cracker for this meaning.

2) The term hacker is used in popular media to describe someone who attempts to break into computer systems. Typically, this kind of hacker would be a proficient programmer or engineer with sufficient technical knowledge to understand the weak points in a security system. For more on this usage, see cracker.
In other word 
"1.a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data.
2.a person or thing that hacks or cuts roughly."

Friday 26 August 2016

How To Unlock Android Pattern Or Password, No Software No Root Needed

how to trace a location

Image result for mobile tracker online
You can see the location of your mobile phone on google
click here on mobile tracer and then you enter your no and see the location online on our website
mytrickycoding

History of Flipcart

Introduction

A quick look into any success story shows a path breaking idea at the heart of the tale. Flipkart is no exception. It is not the idea itself but the conviction to convert ideas into action and action into results is what defines a true success story. Measured by that yardstick, Flipkart has been a hugely successful.

History

flipkart history

Back in 2007, when Flipkart was launched, Indian e-commerce industry was taking its beginner steps. The company is registered in Singapore, but theyir headquarters are in the city of Bangalore, India.

Founders

binny bansal and sachin baansal

Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, who were working for Amazon.com had an idea to start an e-commerce company in India. Both of them are alumni of IIT, Delhi and are native of Chandigarh, India. They left their jobs in Amazon to start their own business. 
One can easily call that a risky move. In a country where people have various tastes and preferences, an ecommerce start-up will always have enormous challenges. In India, people often prefer to shop in person and buy goods they see and like. Today, thanks to Flipkart, e-commerce has become one of the fastest growing sectors in India.

How it Started

flipkart books

Flipkart began selling books to begin with. It soon expanded and began offering a wide variety of goods. Innovating right from the start, Flipkart has been home to few of the striking features of Indian e-commerce.

Fundings History

flipkart success

In the first few years of its existence, Flipkart raised funds through venture capital funding. As the company grew in stature, more funding arrived. Flipkart repaid the investors’ faith with terrific performances year after year. In the financial year 2008-09, Flipkart had made sales to the tune of 40 million Indian rupees. This soon increased to 200 million Indian rupees the following year.
Their last round of Fundraising had increased their value to $ 15 billion, however, as of February 2016, according to Morgan Stanley, their estimated value stands at $11 billion.

Evolution

flipkart evolution

Back at the time when Flipkart was launched, any e-commerce company faced two major difficulties. One was the problem of online payment gateways. Not many people preferred online payment and the gateways were not easy to set up. Flipkart tackled this problem by introducing cash on delivery and payment by card on delivery in addition to others. Flipkart was the first to implement the popular ‘Cash On Delivery’ facility, which every online shopping website in India offers as an option today.
flipkart headoffice

The second problem was the entire supply chain system. Delivering goods on time is one of the most important factor that determines the success of an ecommerce company. Flipkart addressed this issue by launching their own supply chain management system to deliver orders in a timely fashion.
Today as it stands, Sachin Bansal is the Chairman of the company and Binny Bansal is the CEO of Flipkart.

Acquisitions

flipkart myntra

Flipkart also acquired few companies like Myntra.com, LetsBuy.com etc., to better their presence in the market. With the entry of Amazon.com in India, the competition between the companies has seen many takeovers. Flipkart’s journey from a small book e-retailer to India’s largest e-commerce platform inspires a generation of start-ups. In a country where stereotypes are common, Flipkart managed to break the norm and change the ecommerce industry in India for ever. Flipkart’s story proves that if you have a great idea, and you are a doer and not a thinker, success is not far off.

Wednesday 24 August 2016

History of Microsoft

Microsoft is a multinational computer technology corporation. The history of Microsoft began on April 4, 1975, when it was founded byBill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque.[1] Its current best-selling products are the Microsoft Windows operating systemMicrosoft Officesuite of productivity software, Xbox a line of entertainment of games, music and video and Bing, a line of search engines.
In 1980, Microsoft formed a partnership with IBM that allowed them to bundle Microsoft's operating system with IBM computers, paying Microsoft a royalty for every sale. In 1985, IBM requested that Microsoft write a new operating system for their computers called OS/2; Microsoft wrote the operating system, but also continued to sell their own alternative, which proved to be in direct competition with OS/2. Microsoft Windows eventually overshadowed OS/2 in terms of sales. When Microsoft launched several versions of Microsoft Windows in the 1990s, they had captured over 90% market share of the world's personal computers.
As of June 30, 2015, Microsoft has a global annual revenue of $86.83 Billion USD and 128,076 employees worldwide.[2] It develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices

1975–1985: The founding of Microsoft[edit]

Microsoft staff, Albuquerque, Dec 7, 1978
Top: Steve WoodBob WallaceJim Lane
Middle: Bob O'RearBob GreenbergMarc McDonaldGordon Letwin
Bottom: Bill GatesAndrea LewisMarla Wood,Paul Allen
Not pictured: Ric Weiland, Miriam Lubow[6]

Gates described this photo in 2009 as "that famous picture that provides indisputable proof that your average computer geek from the late 1970s was not exactly on the cutting edge of fashion."[7]
The idea that would spawn Microsoft terminated boi when Paul Allen showed Bill Gates the first of January, 1975 issue of Popular Electronics that demonstrated the Altair 8800.[8] Allen and Gates saw potential to develop an implementation of the programming language BASIC interpreter for the system.[9] Bill Gates called the creators of the new microcomputerMicro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), offering to demonstrate the implementation in order to win a contract with the company. Allen and Gates had neither an interpreter nor an Altair system, yet in the eight weeks before the demo they developed an interpreter. When Allen flew to Albuquerque, New Mexico to meet with MITS, the interpreter worked and MITS agreed to distribute Altair BASIC.[10] Allen and Gates left Boston, where Allen worked for Honeywell and Gates was enrolled in Harvard,[11] moved to Albuquerque (where MITS was located), and co-founded Microsoft there. Revenues of the company totaled $16,005 by the end of 1976.
Allen came up with the original name of Micro-Soft, a portmanteau of microcomputer and software.[12] Hyphenated in its early incarnations, on November 26, 1976 the company was registered under that name with the Secretary of State of New Mexico. The company's first international office was founded on November 1, 1978, in Japan, entitled "ASCII Microsoft" (now called "Microsoft Japan"), and on November 29, 1979, the term, "Microsoft" was first used by Bill Gates.[8] On January 1, 1979, the company moved from Albuquerque to a new home in Bellevue, Washington,[8] since it was hard to recruit top programmers to Albuquerque. Shortly before the move, eleven of the then-thirteen employees posed for the staff photo on the right.[13]
Steve Ballmer joined the company on June 11, 1980, and would later succeed Bill Gates as CEO[8] from January 2000 until February 2014. The company restructured on June 25, 1981, to become an incorporated business in its home state of Washington (with a further change of its name to "Microsoft Corporation, Inc."). As part of the restructuring, Bill Gates became president of the company and chairman of the board, and Paul Allen became Executive Vice President.[8]
Microsoft's early products were different variants of Microsoft BASIC which was the dominant programming language in late 1970s and early 1980s home computers such as Apple II (Applesoft BASIC) and Commodore 64 (Commodore BASIC), and were also provided with early versions of the IBM PC as the IBM Cassette BASIC.
The first hardware product[14] was the Z-80 SoftCard which enabled the Apple II to run the CP/M operating system, at the time an industry-standard operating system for running business software and many compilers and interpreters for several high-level languages on microcomputers. The SoftCard was first demonstrated publicly at the West Coast Computer Faire in March 1980.[15][16] It was an immediate success; 5,000 cards, a large number given the microcomputer market at the time, were purchased in the initial three months at $349 each and it was Microsoft's number one revenue source in 1980.[17]
The first operating system publicly released by the company was a variant of Unix announced on August 25, 1980. Acquired from AT&T through a distribution license, Microsoft dubbed it Xenix, and hired Santa Cruz Operation in order to port/adapt the operating system to several platforms.[18][19] This Unix variant would become home to the first version of Microsoft's word processorMicrosoft Word. Originally titled "Multi-Tool Word", Microsoft Word became notable for its use of "What You See Is What You Get", or WYSIWYGpioneered by the Xerox Alto and the Bravo text editor in the 1970s.[20][21]
Word was first released in the spring of 1983, and free demonstration copies of the application were bundled with the November 1983 issue of PC World, making it the first program to be distributed on-disk with a magazine.[22] However, Xenix was never sold to end users directly although it was licensed to many software OEMs for resale. It grew to become the most popular version of Unix, measured by the number of machines running it[23] (note that Unix is a multi-user operating system, allowing simultaneous access to a machine by several users). By the mid-1980s Microsoft had got out of the Unix business, except for an interest in SCO.[18]
DOS (Disk Operating System) was the operating system that brought the company its real success. International Business Machines (IBM) first approached Microsoft about its upcoming IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC) in July 1980.[24] On August 12, 1981, after negotiations with Digital Research failed, IBM awarded a contract to Microsoft to provide a version of the CP/M operating system, which was set to be used in the IBM PC. For this deal, Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called 86-DOS from Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products for less than US$100,000, which IBM renamed to IBM PC DOS. Microsoft did not have an operating system when they closed the deal with IBM and IBM had not done their homework. Due to potential copyright infringement problems with CP/M, IBM marketed both CP/M and PC DOS for US$240 and US$40, respectively, with PC DOS eventually becoming the standard because of its lower price.[25][26] 35 of the company's 100 employees worked on the IBM project for more than a year. When the IBM PC debuted, Microsoft was the only company that offered operating system, programming language, and application software for the new computer.[24]
InfoWorld stated in 1984 that Microsoft, with $55 million in 1983 sales,[27]
is widely recognized as the most influential company in the microcomputer-software industry. Claiming more than a million installed MS-DOS machines, founder and chairman Bill Gates has decided to certify Microsoft's jump on the rest of the industry by dominating applications, operating systems, peripherals and, most recently, book publishing. Some insiders say Microsoft is attempting to be the IBM of the software industry.
In 1983, in collaboration with numerous companies, Microsoft created a home computer system, MSX, which contained its own version of the DOS operating system, called MSX-DOS; this became relatively popular in Japan, Europe and South America.[10][28][29] Later, the market saw a flood of IBM PC clones after Columbia Data Products successfully cloned the IBM BIOS, quickly followed by Eagle Computer and Compaq.[30][31][32][33] The deal with IBM allowed Microsoft to have control of its own QDOS derivative, MS-DOS, and through aggressive marketing of the operating system to manufacturers of IBM-PC clones Microsoft rose from a small player to one of the major software vendors in the home computer industry.[34] With the release of the Microsoft Mouse on May 2, 1983, Microsoft continued to expand its product line in other markets. This expansion includedMicrosoft Press, a book publishing division, on July 11 the same year, which debuted with two titles: Exploring the IBM PCjr Home Computer by Peter Norton, and The Apple Macintosh Book by Cary Lu.[8]

1985–1991: The rise and fall of OS/2[edit]

The sign at a main entrance to the Microsoft corporate campus. TheRedmond campus today includes more than 8 million square feet (approx. 750,000 m²) and 28,000 employees.[35]
Ireland became home to one of Microsoft's international production facilities in 1985, and on November 20 Microsoft released its first retail version of Microsoft Windows (Windows 1.0), originally a graphical extension for its MS-DOS operating system.[8] In August, Microsoft and IBM partnered in the development of a different operating system called OS/2. OS/2 was marketed in connection with a new hardware design proprietary to IBM, the PS/2.[36] On February 16, 1986, Microsoft relocated their headquarters to a corporate office campus inRedmond, Washington. Around one month later, on March 13, the company went public with an IPO, raising US$61 million at US$21.00 per share. By the end of the trading day, the price had risen to US$28.00. In 1987, Microsoft eventually released their first version of OS/2 to OEMs.[37]
Meanwhile, Microsoft began introducing its most prominent office products. Microsoft Works, an integrated office program which combined features typically found in a word processorspreadsheetdatabase and other office applications, saw its first release as an application for the Apple Macintosh towards the end of 1986.[10] Microsoft Works would later be sold with other Microsoft products including Microsoft Word and Microsoft Bookshelf, a reference collection introduced in 1987 that was the company's first CD-ROM product.[8][38] Later, on August 8, 1989, Microsoft would introduce its most successful office product, Microsoft Office. Unlike the model of Microsoft Works, Microsoft Office was a bundle of separate office productivity applications, such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and so forth. While Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office were mostly developed internally, Microsoft also continued its trend of rebranding products from other companies, such as Microsoft SQL Server on January 13, 1988, a relational database management system for companies that was based on technology licensed from Sybase.[8]
On May 22, 1990 Microsoft launched Windows 3.0.[10] The new version of Microsoft's operating system boasted such new features as streamlined graphic user interface GUI and improved protected mode ability for the Intel 386 processor; it sold over 100,000 copies in two weeks.[10][39] Windows at the time generated more revenue for Microsoft than OS/2, and the company decided to move more resources from OS/2 to Windows.[40] In an internal memo to Microsoft employees on May 16, 1991, Bill Gates announced that the OS/2 partnership was over, and that Microsoft would henceforth focus its platform efforts on Windows and the Windows NT kernel. Some people, especially developers who had ignored Windows and committed most of their resources to OS/2, were taken by surprise, and accused Microsoft of deception. This changeover from OS/2 was frequently referred to in the industry as "the head-fake".[41][42] In the ensuing years, the popularity of OS/2 declined, and Windows quickly became the favored PC platform. 1991 also marked the founding of Microsoft Research, an organization in Microsoft for researching computer science subjects, and Microsoft Visual Basic, a popular development product for companies and individuals.[8]

1992–1995: Domination of the corporate market[edit]

The Microsoft sign at the entrance of the German Microsoft campus, Konrad-Zuse-Str. 1, Unterschleißheim, Germany. Microsoft became an international company with headquarters in many countries.
During the transition from MS-DOS to Windows, the success of Microsoft's product Microsoft Office allowed the company to gain ground on application-software competitors, such as WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3.[10][43] Novell, an owner of WordPerfect for a time, alleged that Microsoft used its inside knowledge of the DOS and Windows kernels and of undocumented Application Programming Interface features to make Office perform better than its competitors.[44] Eventually, Microsoft Office became the dominant business suite, with a market share far exceeding that of its competitors.[45] In March 1992, Microsoft released Windows 3.1 along with its first promotional campaign on TV; the software sold over three million copies in its first two months on the market.[8][10] In October, Windows for Workgroups 3.1 was released with integrated networking abilities such as peer-to-peer file and printing sharing.[10] In November, Microsoft released the first version of their popular database software Microsoft Access.[10]
The Microsoft sign at the entrance of the Dubai Microsoft campus, Dubai Internet City. Microsoft has developed Arabic versions for most of its products.
By 1993, Windows had become the most widely used GUI operating system in the world.[10] Fortune Magazine named Microsoft as the "1993 Most Innovative Company Operating in the U.S."[46] The year also marked the end of a five-year copyright infringement legal case brought by Apple Computer, dubbedApple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., in which the ruling was in Microsoft's favor, the release ofWindows for Workgroups 3.11, a new version of the consumer line of Windows, and Windows NT 3.1, a server-based operating system with a similar user interface to consumer versions of the operating system, but with an entirely different kernel.[10] As part of its strategy to broaden its business, Microsoft released Microsoft Encarta on March 22, 1993, the first encyclopedia designed to run on a computer.[8] Soon after, the Microsoft Home brand was introduced – encompassing Microsoft's new multimedia applications for Windows 3.x., Microsoft changed its slogan to "Where do you want to go today?" in 1994 as part of an attempt to appeal to nontechnical audiences in a US$100 million advertising campaign.[10]
Microsoft continued to make strategic decisions directed at consumers. The company released Microsoft Bob, a graphical user interface designed for novice computer users, in March 1995. The interface was discontinued in 1996 due to poor sales; Bill Gates later attributed its failure to hardware requirements that were too high for typical computers; Microsoft Bob is widely regarded as Microsoft's most unsuccessful product.[47][48][why?]DreamWorks SKG and Microsoft formed a new company, DreamWorks Interactive (in 2000 acquired by Electronic Arts which named it EA Los Angeles), to produce interactive and multimedia entertainment properties.[8] On August 24, 1995, Microsoft released Microsoft Windows 95, a new version of the company's flagship operating system which featured a completely new user interface, including a novel start button; more than a million copies of Microsoft Windows 95 were sold in the first four days after its release.[10]
Windows 95 was released without a web browser as Microsoft had not yet developed one. The success of the web caught them by surprise and they subsequently approachedSpyglass to license their browser as Internet Explorer. Spyglass went on to later dispute the terms of the agreement, as Microsoft was to pay a royalty for every copy sold. However, Microsoft sold no copies of Internet Explorer, choosing instead to bundle it for free with the operating system.
Internet Explorer was first included in the Windows 95 Plus! Pack that was released in August 1995.[49] In September, the Chinese government chose Windows to be the operating system of choice in that country, and entered into an agreement with the Company to standardize a Chinese version of the operating system.[10] Microsoft also released the Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro joystick in an attempt to further expand its profile in the computer hardware market.[10]

1995–1999: Foray into the Web and other ventures[edit]

On, May 26, 1995, Bill Gates sent the "Internet Tidal Wave" memorandum to Microsoft executives. The memo described Netscape with their Netscape Navigator as a "new competitor 'born' on the Internet." The memo outlines Microsoft's failure to grasp the Internet's importance, and in it Gates assigns "the Internet the highest level of importance" from then on.[50] Microsoft began to expand its product line into computer networking and the World Wide Web. On August 24, 1995, it launched a major online serviceMSN(Microsoft Network), as a direct competitor to AOL. MSN became an umbrella service for Microsoft's online services, using Microsoft Passport (now called a Microsoft account) as a universal login system for all of its web sites.[8][10][51] The company continued to branch out into new markets in 1996, starting with a joint venture with NBC to create a new 24-hour cable news television station, MSNBC. The station was launched on July 15, 1996 to compete with similar news outlets such as CNN.[10][52] Microsoft also launched Slate, anonline magazine edited by Michael Kinsley, which offered political and social commentary along with the cartoon Doonesbury.[8] In an attempt to extend its reach in the consumer market, the company acquired WebTV, which enabled consumers to access the Web from their televisions.[8] Microsoft entered the personal digital assistant (PDA) market in November with Windows CE 1.0, a new built-from-scratch version of their flagship operating system, designed to run on low-memory, low-performance machines, such as handhelds and other small computers.[53] 1996 saw the release of Windows NT 4.0, which brought the Windows 95 GUI and Windows NT kernel together.[54]
While Microsoft largely failed to participate in the rise of the Internet in the early 1990s, some of the key technologies in which the company had invested to enter the Internet market started to pay off by the mid-90s. One of the most prominent of these was ActiveX, an application programming interface built on the Microsoft Component Object Model(COM); this enabled Microsoft and others to embed controls in many programming languages, including the company's own scripting languages, such as JScript and VBScript. ActiveX included frameworks for documents and server solutions.[10] The company also released the Microsoft SQL Server 6.5, which had built-in support for internet applications.[10] Later in 1997, Microsoft Office 97 as well as Internet Explorer 4.0 were released, marking the beginning of the takeover of the browser market from rivalNetscape, and by agreement with Apple Computer, Internet Explorer was bundled with the Apple Macintosh operating system as well as with Windows.[10] Windows CE 2.0, the handheld version of Windows, was released this year, including a host of bug fixes and new features designed to make it more appealing to corporate customers.[53] In October, the Justice Department filed a motion in the federal district court in which they stated that Microsoft had violated an agreement signed in 1994, and asked the court to stop the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows.[8]
Windows 95-98 desktop
The year 1998 was significant in Microsoft's history, with Bill Gates appointing Steve Ballmer as president of Microsoft but remaining as Chair and CEO himself.[8] The company released an update to the consumer version of Windows, Windows 98.[8] Windows 98 came with Internet Explorer 4.0 SP1 (which had Windows Desktop Update bundled), and included new features from Windows 95 OSR 2.x including the FAT32 file system, and new features designed for Windows 98, such as support for multiple displays.[55] Microsoft launched its Indian headquarters as well, which would eventually become the company's second largest after its U.S. headquarters.[10] Finally, a great deal of controversy took place when a set of internal memos from the company were leaked on the Internet. These documents, colloquially referred to as "The Halloween Documents", were widely reported by the media and go into detail of the threats that free software / open source software poses to Microsoft's own software, previously voiced mainly by analysts and advocates of open source software. The documents also allude to legal and other actions against Linux as well as other open source software.[56][57] While Microsoft acknowledges the documents, it claims that they are merely engineering studies. Despite this, some believe that these studies were used in the real strategies of the company.[58]

2000–2005: Legal issues, XP, and .NET[edit]

Bill Gates gives a presentation at IT-Forum in Copenhagen in 2004
Microsoft, in 2000, released new products for all three lines of the company's flagship operating system, and saw the beginning of the end of one of its most prominent legal cases. On February 17, 2000, Microsoft released an update to its business line of software in Windows 2000. It provided a high level of stability similar to that of its Unix counterparts due to its usage of the Windows NT kernel, and matching features found in the consumer line of the Windows operating system including a DOS emulator that could run many legacy DOS applications.[10]
On April 3, 2000, a judgment was handed down in the case of United States v. Microsoft,[59] calling the company an "abusive monopoly"[60]and forcing the company to split into two separate units. Part of this ruling was later overturned by a federal appeals court, and eventually settled with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2001. On June 15, 2000, the company released a new version of its hand-held operating system, Windows CE 3.0.[53] The main change was the new programming APIs of the software. Previous versions of Windows CE supported only a small subset of the WinAPI, the main development library for Windows, and with Version 3 of Windows CE, the operating system now supported nearly all of the core functionality of the WinAPI. The next update to the consumer line, Windows Me (or Windows Millennium Edition), was released on September 14, 2000.[8] It sported several new features such as enhanced multimedia abilities and consumer-oriented PC maintenance options, but is often regarded as one of the worst versions of Windows due to installation problems and other issues.[48][61]
Windows XP introduced a new interface, along with many other new features. This screenshot shows Windows XP Professional.
Microsoft released Windows XP and Office XP in 2001, a version that aimed to encompass the features of both its business and home product lines. The release included an updated version of the Windows 2000 kernel, enhanced DOS emulation abilities, and many of the home-user features found in previous consumer versions. XP introduced a new graphical user interface, the first such change since Windows 95.[8][62] The operating system was the first to require Microsoft Product Activation, an anti-piracy mechanism that requires users to activate the software with Microsoft within 30 days. Later, Microsoft would enter the multibillion-dollar game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo, with the release of the Xbox.[8] The Xbox finished behind the dominant PlayStation 2 selling 24 million units compared to the PlayStation 2's 136 million however they managed to outsell the Nintendo Gamecube which sold 21 million units. Microsoft launched their second console, the Xbox 360, in 2005 – which has turned out to be a lot more successful than their first console. It has sold 40 million units as of 2010 and it has outsold Sony's PlayStation 3 which has so far sold 35 million units. However, despite beating Sony with their last Xbox console, Microsoft so far has been outsold by the Nintendo Wii which introduced gesture control and opened up a new market for video games. Microsoft later used their popular controller-free Kinect peripheral to increase the popularity of the Xbox. This was very successful. As of 2011 Kinect was the fastest selling consumer electronics product in history.[63] It sold 8 million units from November 4, 2010 to January 3, 2011 (its first 60 days). It averaged 133,333 units per day, outselling the iPhone and iPad over equivalent post-launch periods.[63]
In 2002, Microsoft launched the .NET initiative, along with new versions of some of its development products, such as Microsoft Visual Studio.[8] The initiative has been an entirely new development API for Windows programming, and includes a new programming language, C#Windows Server 2003 was launched, featuring enhanced administration abilities, such as new user interfaces to server tools.[10] In 2004, the company released Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, a version of Windows XP designed for multimedia abilities, and Windows XP Starter Edition, a version of Windows XP with a smaller feature set designed for entry-level consumers.[8] However, Microsoft would encounter more turmoil in March 2004 when antitrust legal action would be brought against it by the European Union for allegedly abusing its market dominance (see European Union Microsoft antitrust case). Eventually Microsoft was fined €497 million (US$613 million), ordered to divulge certain protocols to competitors, and to produce a new version of its Windows XP platform—called Windows XP Home Edition N—that did not include its Windows Media Player.[64][65] Microsoft was also ordered to produce separate packages of Windows after South Korea also landed a settlement against the company in 2005. It had to pay out US$32 million and produce more than one version of Windows for the country in the same vein as the European Union-one with Windows Media Player and Windows Messenger and one without the two programs.[66]

2005–present: Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10[edit]

In guise of competing with other Internet Companies such as the search service Google, in 2005 Microsoft announced a new version of its MSN search service.[67] Later, in 2006, the company launched Microsoft adCenter, a service that offers pay per click advertisements, in an effort to further develop their search marketing revenue.[68] Soon afterward, Microsoft created the CodePlex collaborative development site for hosting open source projects. Activity grew quickly as developers from around the world began to participate, and by early 2007 commercial open source companies, such as Aras Corp,.[69] began to offer enterprise open source software exclusively on the Microsoft platform.
On June 15, 2006, Bill Gates announced his plans for a two-year transition period out of a day-to-day role with Microsoft until July 31, 2008. After that date, Gates will continue in his role as the company's chairman, head of the board of directors and act as an adviser on key projects. His role as Chief Software Architect will be filled immediately by Ray Ozzie, the Chief Technical Officer of the company as of June 15, 2006.[70] Bill Gates stated "My announcement is not a retirement – it’s a reordering of my priorities."[71]
Formerly codenamed "Longhorn" in the early development stages, Windows Vista was released to consumers on January 30, 2007.[72][73] Microsoft also released a new version of its Office suite, called Microsoft Office 2007, alongside Windows Vista. Windows Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008, the next versions of the company's server operating system and development suite, respectively, were released on February 27, 2008.[74] Windows Vista was criticized for being heavy and needing large amounts of power to run the desktop widgets and the Aero theme. Many people continued to use Windows XP for many years after, due to its stability and low processing needs.
On December 19, 2007, Microsoft signed a five-year, $500 million contract with Viacom that included content sharing and advertisements. The deal allowed Microsoft to license many shows from Viacom owned cable television and film studios for use on Xbox Live and MSN. The deal also made Viacom a preferred publisher partner for casual game development and distribution through MSN and Windows. On the advertisement side of the deal, Microsoft's Atlas ad-serving division became the exclusive provider of previously unsold advertising inventory on Viacom owned web sites. Microsoft also purchased a large amount of advertising on Viacom owned broadcasts and online networks, and collaborated on promotions and sponsorships for MTV and BET award shows, two Viacom owned cable networks.[75]
In 2008, Microsoft wanted to purchase Yahoo (first completely, later partially) in order to strengthen its position on the search engine market vis-à-vis Google.[76][77] The company rejected the offer, saying that it undervalued the company. In response, Microsoft withdrew its offer.