Go On "msn"

Owner Of msn

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) is an American multinational computer technology corporation. It develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices.^[8][7] Microsoft's best-selling products are the Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software. These products have prominent positions in their respective markets, with market share estimates as high as 90% or more for Microsoft Windows as of 2006 and for Microsoft Office as of 2003.^{[citation needed]} One of Bill Gates' key visions for the company was to "to get a workstation running our software onto every desk and eventually in every home

Founded to develop and sell BASIC interpreters 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 monopoly status and anti-competitive business practices including refusal to deal and tying. The U.S. Justice Department and the European Commission, among others, have ruled against Microsoft for various antitrust violations.^[20][21]

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.^[8] 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.^[22][19] 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 14^th amongst all websites for traffic rank

See also

• List of MSN services
• List of search engines
• Microsoft
• Microsoft Windows
• Windows 95
• Internet Explorer
• Windows Live
• .NET Messenger Service
• MSN Messenger
• Windows Live Messenger
• Hotmail
• MSN Search
• MSN Chat
• MSN Groups
• MSN Video
• MSN Soapbox
• MSNBC
• ninemsn

Affiliated services

Cross-branded services

Microsoft has collaborated with many other service providers, as well as other Microsoft departments to expand the range of MSN's services. Some examples include Microsoft adCenter, MSN Shopping (affiliated with eBay, PriceGrabber and Shopping.com), and the MSN Encarta encyclopedia with various levels of access to information. In addition, MSN Internet Access subscribers have also received MSN Firewall and MSN Virus Guard provided by McAfee, and the Webroot Spy Sweeper for MSN. These services are similar to those offered by other Internet service providers.

International services

Globally, MSN has good reception, partnering with local TV stations and telecommunications companies to provide service in some areas. In Canada, MSN has partnered with Bell Sympatico (the ISP division of Bell Canada). In Australia, the Nine Network has partnered with MSN to create "ninemsn." In Mexico, MSN has partenered with Telcel's Prodigy creating Prodigy / MSN. An affiliation with Xtra, Telecom New Zealand's Internet provider ended in 2006

Other services known as "MSN"

1 ) Hotmail

Hotmail is a free web-based email service by Microsoft. Originally started as an independent service in 1996, it became part of the MSN family in 1997. Since 2006, it has been part of Microsoft's Windows Live group of online services. Hotmail has over 380 million users worldwide and is available in 35 different languages

2) Messenger

MSN launched an instant messaging service in 1999 to compete with AOL Instant Messenger. The service was originally known as "MSN Messenger Service," and was later shortened to simply "MSN Messenger." Today, the underlying technology is known as ".NET Messenger Service," while the program used to access the service is called "Windows Live Messenger." Regardless, the term "MSN" has come to be synonymous with the messenger service in Internet slang. As of 2008, the messenger service has more than 225 million users

Windows Live

Many of MSN's services were reorganized in 2006 under a new brand name, Windows Live. This move was part of Microsoft's strategy to improve its online offerings using the Windows brand name. The company also overhauled its online software and services due to increasing competition from rivals such as Yahoo! and Google. The new name was introduced one service at a time. Windows Live uses "Web 2.0" technology to offer features and functionality through a web browser that were traditionally only available through a dedicated software program.

Among the services affected by the rebranding were MSN Hotmail (now called Windows Live Hotmail), MSN Messenger (now called Windows Live Messenger), MSN Search (now called Live Search), MSN Virtual Earth (now called Live Search Maps), MSN Spaces (now called Windows Live Spaces), and MSN Alerts (now called Windows Live Alerts) and in the future, MSN Groups will be rebranded as Windows Live Groups. Microsoft has also not established if MSN Direct will remain a part of the MSN family or transition to Windows Live. Since the introduction of Windows Live, some new services have been announced, such as Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner and Windows Live Favorites.

After the launch of Windows Live, the focus of MSN shifted to an online news, entertainment, and common interest content provider through its Internet portal, MSN.com, while Windows Live now provides most of Microsoft's online software and services.

MSN.com

In 1998, the largely underutilized MSN.com domain name was reinvented as both an Internet portal and as a brand for a family of sites produced inside Microsoft's Interactive Media Group. The new site put MSN in direct competition with sites such as Yahoo! and Go Network. Because the new format opened up MSN's content to the world for free, the Internet service provider and subscription service was renamed "MSN Internet Access" at that time.

The relaunched MSN.com contained a whole family of sites, including original content, channels that were carried over from web shows that were part of the "MSN 2.0" experiment (although none of the actual shows remained), and new features that were rapidly added. MSN.com also became a successor to the default Internet Explorer start page, as all of the previous "Microsoft Internet Start" web site was merged with MSN.com.

Since then, MSN.com has remained a popular destination, launching many web services and new content sites. MSN's Hotmail and Messenger services were promoted from the MSN.com portal, which provided a central place for all of MSN's content and related web sites. MSN Search, a dedicated search engine for the portal, launched in 1999. The MSN.com portal and related group of services under the "MSN" umbrella remained largely the same throughout much of the next decade.