MICROSOFT

Type	Public (NASDAQ: MSFT)
Founded	Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA (April 4, 1975)
Headquarters	Redmond, Washington, United States
Key people	Bill Gates, Co-founder and Executive Chairman Paul Allen, Co-founder Steve Ballmer, CEO Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect
Industry	Computer software Publishing Research and development Computer hardware Video games
Products	Microsoft Windows Microsoft Office Microsoft Servers Developer Tools Business Solutions Games& Xbox Windows LivE Windows Mobile Zune
Revenue	▲ US $51.12 billion (2007)
Operating income	▲ US $18.52 billion (2007)
Net income	▲ US $14.06 billion (2007)
Employees	79,000 (2007)
Slogan	Your potential. Our passion.
	Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) (SEHK: 4338), or often just MS, is an multinational computer technology corporation with 79,000 employees in 102 countries and global annual revenue of US $51.12 billion as of 2007. It develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices. Headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA, its best selling products are the Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software. These products have prominent positions in the desktop computer market, with market share estimates as high as 90% or more as of 2003 for Microsoft Office and 2006 for Microsoft Windows. One of Bill Gates' key visions is "to get a workstation running our software onto every desk and eventually in every home". Founded to develop and sell basic for the Altair 8800, Microsoft rose to dominate the home computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s. The company released an initial public offering (IPO) in the stock market, which, due to the ensuing rise of the stock price, has made four billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees. Throughout its history the company has been the target of criticism for various reasons, including monopolistic business practices—both the U.S. Justice Department and the European Commission, among others, brought Microsoft to court for antitrust violations and software bundling. Microsoft has footholds in other markets besides operating systems and office suites, with assets such as the MSNBC cable television network, the MSN Internet portal, and the Microsoft Encarta multimedia encyclopedia. The company also markets both computer hardware products such as the Microsoft mouse and home entertainment products such as the Xbox, Xbox 360, Zune and MSN TV. Known for what is generally described as a developer-centric business culture, Microsoft has historically given customer support over Usenet newsgroups and the World Wide Web, and awards Microsoft MVP status to volunteers who are deemed helpful in assisting the company's customers. The company's official website is one of the most visited on the Internet, receiving more than 2.4 million unique page views per day according to Alexa.com, which ranked the site 18th amongst all websites for traffic rank on September 12, 2007. Google Inc. Type Public (NASDAQ: GOOG), (LSE:GGEA) Founded Menlo Park, California (September 7, 1998) Headquarters Google Campus, Mountain View, California, USA Key people Eric E. Schmidt, CEO/Director Sergey Brin, Co-Founder, Technology President Larry Page, Co-Founder, Products President George Reyes, CFO Industry Internet, Computer software Products See list of Google products Revenue US$16.593 billion ▲56% (2007) Net income US$4.203 billion ▲25% (2007)[2] Total assets US$25.335 billion (2007) Total equity US$22.689 billion (2007) Employees 16,805 (December 31, 2007) Slogan Don't be evil Website www.google.com Google Inc. is an American public corporation, earning revenue from online and mobile advertising related to its Internet search, web-based e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking, and video sharing as well as selling advertising-free versions of the same technologies. Google's headquarters, the Googleplex, is located in Mountain View, California, and the company has 16,805 full-time employees (as of December 31, 2007). It is the largest American company (by market capitalization) that is not part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (as of October 31, 2007). Google was co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 7, 1998. Google's initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004, raising US$1.67 billion, making it worth US$23 billion. Google has continued its growth through a series of new product developments, acquisitions, and partnerships. Environmentalism, philanthropy, and positive employee relations have been important tenets during Google's growth, the latter resulting in being identified multiple times as Fortune Magazine's #1 Best Place to Work. The company's unofficial slogan is "Don't be evil", however Google is not without controversy related to its business practices; there are concerns regarding the privacy of personal information, copyright, censorship, and discontinuation of services.