These Three Popular Websites Are Sister Sites Of Microsoft

A software company founded in a garage in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has expanded to broad areas of the tech industry. In 1975, Bill Gates & Paul Allen founded Microsoft (MSFT), which today is one of the world’s largest technology companies. Beyond the software, the company sells personal computing devices, cloud-computing infrastructure and services, artificial intelligence (AI), etc through a string of small and large acquisitions they have done.

LinkedIn is ensuring people connect professional networks online through its website. This business-centric social media website was founded in 2002 and within 5 years was a profitable business. From 15 million members in 2007 to 100 million in 2011 when it went public, the company grew tremendously.

Microsoft acquired the profit making company in 2016 following which the growth became massive with LinkedIn having 500 million active members in about 200 countries worldwide. Even after the acquisition, Microsoft didn’t meddle with the workings of LinkedIn. They have had a hands off approach and allowed LinkedIn to retain the core brand and culture. The then CEO Jeff Weiner was also retained after the acquisition.

Through LinkedIn’s commercial business, it generates commercial cloud revenue for Microsoft while mainly providing Microsoft with a valuable social media platform and recruiting tool earning revenue through premium memberships.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Skype

Skype is another one of the sister sites of Microsoft. Headquartered in Luxembourg, Skype Technologies was founded in 2003 by Niklas Zennström of Sweden and Janus Friis of Denmark. Skype is Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) communications technology allowing its users to interact by audio through an Internet connection over an analog connection.

Starting from 1 million registered users in 2004, the company expanded its users to more than 250 million users per month in 2012. Microsoft after acquiring Skype in 2011 has been its parent in integrating its capabilities with technologies like Xbox and Windows devices, and with online platforms like Outlook and Xbox Live.

Open-source coding repository and development tool, GitHub

In 2007, Chris Wanstrath founded GitHub when he created the 1st ‘commit’. Commit is used by the coders to describe the action of storing a file’s hierarchy and content in a digital repository. For the software developers and large companies, GitHub is one of the most popular open-source coding repositories and development tools. Microsoft acquired GitHub in 2018 when the company had reached 30 million developers and was hosting more than 100 million repositories.

Microsoft is focused on development of open source and this acquisition demonstrated their aim. The company, Microsoft, is looking at accelerating developer use of the platform and provisioning of more tools and services to new audiences.