2000



Letter to Shareholders



In 1975, Microsoft had three employees, $16,000 in revenue and a single software product – a version of the BASIC computer language that ran the first personal computer, the Altair 8800.

In 2000, as we mark our 25th year, Microsoft is the world’s largest software company, with nearly 40,000 employees, $23 billion in revenue, and a wide range of powerful software and Internet products, including the most popular PC operating system, productivity software and Internet network.

It’s been truly amazing to be at the focal point of two revolutions that have swept the world since Microsoft’s modest beginnings: a PC revolution that has made powerful and affordable computing available to hundreds of millions of people around the globe, and an Internet revolution that is fundamentally changing how people communicate, learn and share information, and the way entire industries operate. 

At the core of these remarkable advances is software – the magic that makes this technology useful. At Microsoft, software is our passion, the reason we’re excited to come to work every morning. As we look to the future, our commitment to advance the frontiers of software technology offers extraordinary opportunities for consumers, businesses and our company.

With the release of Windows® 2000, the continuing strength of Microsoft® Office, our expanding enterprise server family and the surging popularity of MSN®, we have strong core businesses.  At the same time, we are making significant strategic investments for the future in key growth areas, including wireless technologies, digital devices, games, TV, small business and, most important, the new Microsoft .NET platform. Over the next year, we will invest more than $4 billion in research and development to advance our core businesses, build on our strategic investments and deliver on the promise of our most important software initiative ever – Microsoft .NET.



Microsoft .NET



Just as our development of PC operating systems and other software technologies have driven growth in the industry over the past quarter century, today we are working to enable a new era of empowerment for computer users, and growth opportunities for both businesses and software developers.  Microsoft .NET comprises the software and services that will power the Next Generation Internet.

As anyone who has used a PC knows, today’s Internet experience can be fun, exciting and informative.  It also can be confusing and difficult.  For example, Web browsing, content authoring and editing, e-mail, calendaring and contacts each require separate applications that have widely varying functionality and compatibility.  Communicating between devices such as PCs, mobile phones and handheld devices is challenging at best.  Meanwhile, information on the Internet continues to exist on “digital islands” of independent Web sites.  This information is easy to browse, but difficult to edit or manipulate in any useful way.  There is enormous benefit and opportunity in linking these isolated islands of data, services and devices in ways that will enable people and businesses to communicate and collaborate more easily.  This is