TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part 1 – INTRODUCTION

Brief history of the Microsoft Corporation Company ………………………………..
Microsoft vs the United States of America …………………………………………...
Microsoft vs the European Union ……………………………………………………...

Part 2 – MICROSOFT VS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Part 3 - MICROSOFT VS THE EUROPEAN UNION

Part 4 - CONCLUSION

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS LAW – MICROSOFT CASE STUDY

INTRODUCTION and brief history of the Microsoft Corporation company

With annual revenues of dozens of billions every year, Microsoft Corporation is one of the biggest software company in the world and its a cultural phenomenon. Microsoft is an American public corporation that develops, sells, licences and support a large variety of products related to computing. The company is known worldwide and employs approximately 88 000 people in more that 100 different countries. Microsoft was born in New Mexico (USA) in 1975. It was created by two american students : Bill Gates and Paul Allen. The company was lead by Bill Gates for a long time, making him the wealthiest man on the planet for many years aswell as a worldly known and famous businessman.

The origin of the company goes back to the 1960s, where Gates and his good friend Paul Allen begun to be interested in testing computers. They established their fist company in 1972, which sold a basic computer capable of analyzind traffic data. Both friend left their University studies later on to focus more on developping computer programs. Microsoft was then found in 1975. In the 1980s, IBM contracted Microsoft in order to develop languages for its own Personal Computer, the PC. In a series of event where IBM could not agree on terms about the contract of the operating system with its partners, Microsoft acquired the rights to the product that would later become the famous MS-DOS. Microsoft then had all the rights to selling this operating system to consumers and companies, and its MS-DOS rapidly became the