As 2011 winds down, everyone likes to take time to reflect upon the ups and downs that we experienced throughout the year. These usually take the form of top-10 lists, but the Seattle Times did things a little differently and compiled a list of Microsoft’s trials and tribulations using all of the letters of the alphabet.
Looking over the list, we can see that Microsoft had an extremely busy and very productive year. The company marked their one-year anniversary of many new products, including their cloud platform, Azure, and their motion sensor, Kinect. Microsoft made their largest purchase ever, acquiring Skype for $8.5 billion. They also partnered with Nokia in order to improve their Windows Phone platform, and partnered with Facebook to improve Bing’s exposure. Another big announcement was the release of Windows Phone 7.5, codenamed Mango.
Some of the letters were reaches, with the most obvious being the letter Y: “Y chromosome,” indicating that 76 percent of Microsoft’s employees are men, a stat that is worthless without context of what other companies are doing.
What was your favorite Microsoft memory in 2011, and what big announcements (aside from Windows 8) will be coming out in 2012?