Microsoft engineering groups

Microsoft engineering groups are the operating divisions of Microsoft. Initially in April 2002, Microsoft organised itself into seven groups, each an independent financial entity. In September 2005, Microsoft announced a rationalisation of its seven groups into the three groups. In July 2013, Microsoft announced a sweeping reorganisation into five engineering groups and six corporate affairs groups.[1] A year later, in June 2015, Microsoft announced a major reorganisation into three engineering groups, to drive engineering alignment against the company’s core ambitions: reinvent productivity and business processes, build the intelligent cloud platform, and create more personal computing.[2] In September 2016, a new group was created to place emphasis on artificial intelligence and research. [3]

Windows and Devices

This group produces below products.

Windows

Main article: Microsoft Windows

This is Microsoft's flagship product. Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985, as a graphical operating system shell for MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs).[4] Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal computer market with over 90% market share as of 2015.[5]

Windows is available in different families, catering to different kind of devices.[6]

Devices

Main article: Microsoft hardware

The Microsoft hardware division is responsible for producing self-branded hardware and various lines of consumer electronics products. They consist of:

MSN

Main articles: MSN and MSN Dial-up

MSN is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft. It was launched on August 1995. The current website and suite of apps offered by MSN was first introduced by Microsoft in 2014 as part of a complete redesign and relaunch.[21] The redesign of MSN proved positive and helped increase traffic with an additional 10 million daily visitors after two months.[22] MSN is based in the United States and offers international versions of its portal for dozens of countries around the world.[23]

Servers

Main article: Microsoft Servers

Microsoft Servers[24] (previously called Windows Server System) is a brand that encompasses Microsoft's server products. This includes the Windows Server editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system itself, as well as products targeted at the wider business market.[25] Microsoft's server products are further categorized into four groups namely, Operating systems, Productivity, Security and Microsoft System Center. A complete listing of product offerings can be found here.

In July 2016, Microsoft moved the Windows Server team and its related products to the Windows and Devices Group, further justifying one Windows core across all platforms.[26]

Cloud and Enterprise

This group produces below products.

Azure

Main article: Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure[27] is the company's cloud computing platform that hosts virtual machines, websites and more. It provides both platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) services and supports many different programming languages, tools and frameworks, including both Microsoft-specific and third-party software and systems. It was launched in 2010.

Visual Studio

Microsoft Visual Studio[28] the set of programming tools and compilers. The software product is GUI-oriented and links easily with the Windows APIs, but must be specially configured if used with non-Microsoft libraries. Visual Studio supports development for both native Windows platform and .NET Framework. It was launched in 1995.

Dynamics

Main article: Microsoft Dynamics

Microsoft Dynamics is a line of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) software applications. Microsoft Dynamics was previously a separate engineering unit until it got reorganised into the Cloud & Enterprise Group in June 2015.[29]

Office Product

This group produces apps from the Microsoft Office family.

Office

Microsoft Office is a line of office software, provided by Microsoft. It is available in three versions, for desktop, for mobile devices and an online one.

Skype

Main articles: Skype and Skype Technologies

Skype[34] is an application that specializes in providing video chat and voice call services. Users can exchange text and video messages, files and images, and create conference calls. Other applications developed alongside Skype are Skype Translator, Skype Qik and GroupMe. Originally launched in 2003, it was bought by Microsoft in 2011 for $8.5 billion.[35]

AI and Research

This group was created in September 2016 to emphasize the company's presence on artificial intelligence. It was formed when parts of the former Apps and Services group came together with the research team to form a fourth engineering group.[3][36]

Bing

Main articles: Bing and Bing Mobile

Bing (known previously as Live Search, Windows Live Search, and MSN Search) is a web search engine (advertised as a "decision engine"[37]) from Microsoft. As of 2015, it is the second largest search engine in the world, behind Google. A complete list of search offerings from Bing can be found here. Under Bing, below non-search offerings are also listed:

Research

Main article: Microsoft Research

Microsoft Research was created with the intent to advance state of the art computing and solve difficult world problems through technological innovation in collaboration with academic, government, and industry researchers.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Ballmer, Steve. "One Microsoft: Company realigns to enable innovation at greater speed, efficiency". Microsoft. Microsoft. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
  2. ↑ Microsoft aligns engineering teams to strategy
  3. 1 2 "Internal email: Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division; key exec Qi Lu leaving after bike injury". GeekWire. 2016-09-29. Retrieved 2016-10-27.
  4. ↑ "The Unusual History of Microsoft Windows". Retrieved April 22, 2007.
  5. ↑ Desktop Operating System Market Share
  6. ↑ Windows different editions
  7. ↑ Market Share Building for Windows Tablets, says Strategy Analytics
  8. ↑ Android and iOS Squeeze the Competition, Swelling to 96.3% of the Smartphone Operating System Market
  9. ↑ A Guided Tour of Windows 10 IoT Core
  10. ↑ Microsoft Phasing Out Windows Mobile 6.x
  11. ↑ Microsoft to End Support Of Old Windows Versions
  12. ↑ The biggest Xbox One update in history finally has a launch date
  13. ↑ Microsoft morphs into a hardware giant with closure of Nokia deal
  14. ↑ Microsoft Lumia 950 XL Dual SIM Review
  15. ↑ What Impressed Me the Most About Microsoft’s HoloLens
  16. ↑ The history of the Xbox
  17. ↑ "Midnight Madness Hypes Xbox 360 Launch". Retrieved 2006-07-03.
  18. ↑ "Xbox 360 sells out within hours". BBC News. 2005-12-02. Retrieved 2006-07-03.
  19. ↑ Tor Thorsen (2005-11-11). "360 to play 200-plus Xbox games". GameSpot. Retrieved 2006-07-14.
  20. ↑ Tor Thorsen (2005-12-09). "360 backward-compatibility update re-released". GameSpot. Retrieved 2006-07-14.
  21. ↑ Bishop, Todd (September 30, 2014). "MSN's rebirth brings Microsoft's new approach into focus". GeekWire. Retrieved 2014-10-01.
  22. ↑ Finney, Joseph (19 November 2014). "How has Microsoft's redesign of MSN.com affected daily site traffic?". WinBeta.
  23. ↑ "MSN Worldwide". Retrieved 2015-04-10.
  24. ↑ Microsoft R Servers for Hadoop, Teradata and Linux -- seemingly, the renamed version of Revolution Analytics' commercial versions of its analytics products -- are available to MSDN subscribers
  25. ↑ Microsoft Plumbs Ocean’s Depths to Test Underwater Data Center
  26. ↑ Foley, Mary Jo. "Microsoft to move Windows Server engineering team into Windows and Devices Group | ZDNet". ZDNet. Retrieved 2016-11-29.
  27. ↑ Inside Microsoft’s Azure Stack Private Cloud
  28. ↑ Microsoft open-sources Visual Studio Code, launches free Visual Studio Dev Essentials program
  29. ↑ Foley, Mary Jo (18 June 2015). "How Microsoft's latest reorg will affect Dynamics CRM and ERP. Microsoft is bringing its Dynamics CRM and ERP businesses out of their silo and into the company's Cloud and Enterprise unit.". ZDNet.
  30. ↑ Mac users can now try out new Microsoft Office features early with ‘Office Insider’ program
  31. ↑ Office Mobile apps Word, PowerPoint and Excel see new updates arrive in store
  32. ↑ "Office on mobile devices". Microsoft. Retrieved 23 June 2014.
  33. ↑ Microsoft Office Online Gets New Cloud Storage Options
  34. ↑ Microsoft Brings Skype Closer to Unified Business Communication
  35. ↑ Microsoft Buys Skype for $8.5 Billion. Why, Exactly?
  36. ↑ Linke, Rebecca. "The reasoning behind Microsoft's new A.I. and Research Group". Computerworld. Retrieved 2016-10-27.
  37. ↑ "Welcome to Discover Bing". Discover Bing. Retrieved 16 January 2010.
  38. ↑ HERE’S WHAT’S CHANGING WITH BING ADS NOW THAT IT INCLUDES AOL
  39. ↑ Bing Translator beta app for Windows 10 updated
  40. ↑ Bing Webmaster Tools Warns of Microsoft Edge Compatibility Issues
  41. ↑ How to Turn On and Use Cortana in Microsoft Edge
  42. ↑ Bing Pulse real-time polling tools are now Microsoft Pulse real-time polling tools
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/29/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.