Power Of Microsoft: Company And Its Subsidiaries
Microsoft (MS) Corporation is a multinational computer technology corporation originally founded by Bill Gates. It develops and manufactures computer software, electronics, personal computers, and much more. MS is best known for its Office suite and the Internet Explorer browser. Their mission is to ‘empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more’. Statistically they have achieved the goal by being the World’s third largest software companies with many subsidiaries. Microsoft Corporation has exponentially grown and secured a reputations through the shoes of other companies by having controls over major companies. There are many reasons why companies acquire another companies rather than growing on their own. The most important one known is to increase their market share.
Most companies buy shares of their competitors to eliminate any potential competition in the industry and secure its consumer’s population, while others look for potential opportunities to expand their business throughout the world. Political economy plays a role in ownerships of a company. It’s the study of social relations in terns of power that impacts the production, distribution, and consumption of resources. Microsoft has acquired many companies in the past but unfortunately not all of its acquisitions lead to success. At certain levels Microsoft practices the concept of capitalism. Capitalism is an economic representation designed to enable an unequal distribution of material resources and private wealth. It’s about letting some companies have either more security or more leisures over their ownership than others. Capitalism recognized the rights of private companies to choose how to employ their labour and capital within the markets.
Even though Microsoft acquires so many companies, it allows them to operate as independent subsidiaries but also operate in the manner that will benefit both and bring profit into the corporation and also gain the opportunity to grow in the industry. All these companies’ production is organized by private ownership, in this case Microsoft, whose main goal is to maximize their profits and contribute to the labour markets. These capitalist want to maximize their possible return and minimize the risk that they might have with their investments. That is why some acquisition were eventually bought out by Microsoft due to the amount of profit the companies were generating.
Through this research, the flow of power was deeply researched. Companies originally gained power buy developing products or services that other companies or group may want. They acquire authority to influence other companies with the corporate's decision. A research shows that authorities as a form of power is mainly unidirectional. However, based on my findings, it can be proven that the subordinates can also exercise power by acquiring companies on their own, and that power is referred to multidirectional. Despite the different powers, the whole corporate’s power is centralized under the main corporation, in this case it’s Microsoft. Nonetheless, ownership matters a lot. It creates reputation, mostly great for business growth, and comes with few potential risks but besides that it creates a system to be well-known and be known around the globe.
