Whether in offices, classrooms, or even agriculture, Microsoft technologies are omnipresent today. With its Windows operating system, the company transformed computing, making personal computers accessible to the masses.

Its Office suite became synonymous with modern office work, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, Microsoft Teams became a lifeline for businesses and schools worldwide. Today, the communications platform has over 320 million daily users, turning remote work from an exception into the norm.

As Microsoft, headquartered in Redmond, United States, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this Friday (April 4), the company stands at a pivotal moment this year.

With its dominance in industries like cloud computing, operating systems, and development tools, will the tech giant also lead the transition into the artificial intelligence (AI) era — or is its enormous influence a cause for concern?

It all began in 1975 in a small garage in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Two college friends and programmers, Bill Gates (19) and Paul Allen (22), had a simple yet groundbreaking vision: making computers accessible to everyone.

A key milestone for the young founders was their 1980 partnership with IBM, which established Microsoft's MS-DOS as the standard operating system in the PC industry. The launch of Windows a few years later laid the foundation for Microsoft's future dominance in the software market.

Over the past five decades, Microsoft has continuously adapted to technological changes and expanded its business into new areas. It's no longer just a software........

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