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Microsoft, without a doubt, is the world's largest software manufacturer. However, despite the company's serious efforts to go beyond the world of software and the desire to engage in more and hardware products, this company will always be recognized as a "producer of the Windows operating system".

At the moment, the Redmond company employs almost 95 thousand people from all over the world, but with the purchase of Nokia mobile unit this figure will now increase to 125 thousand. In other words, one of the largest companies in the world has become even larger. But all these new employees will be useful to her, because Microsoft's client base is estimated by tens of millions of users around the world.

Many of you are very likely at least partially familiar with the history of Microsoft and you definitely know how it came about. However, there are some interesting stories about which, perhaps, some of you still might not have known. The purpose of this article is to acquaint you with ten lesser known facts about the company, which continues to feed on its operating systems about 90 percent of the always personal computer market.

1. Microsoft founder Bill Gates was arrested several times

Being one of the most famous philanthropists on Earth, Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and one of the richest people in the world, was arrested several times in his youth. The first time he was arrested in 1975, when the police caught him for speeding and for Gates's lack of driving rights. Two years later he was arrested again. This happened in the city of Albuquerque, where the young and hot Gates rode around the intersections to a red traffic light. And again without rights. His last arrest took place in 1989, when he almost became the head of Microsoft. He was detained with charges of drunk driving.

Now, old Billy has settled down and is literally a real positive example for many. In most cases, of course, thanks to his work in a charitable organization, which he and his wife founded. The Cheet Gates invests huge amounts of money from their personal accounts on vaccine development that could help treat many diseases in poor countries such as Africa, for example.

2. Microsoft employees love pizza

If you would like to know what is the most favorite dish of the average Microsoft employee, then the answer will be very simple - pizza. Employees of this company for a year eat just a huge amount of pizza, for which, by the way, each of them could be proud of.

According to the statistics of Microsoft itself, employees of the company eat up at least 554 thousand slices of pizza and at least 250 thousand whole pizzas per year. The second favorite dish of software gurus are sandwiches. Each year, in the dungeons of their company cafeterias, one million is eaten. The most popular type of sandwich is a turkey sandwich. According to the company, 225,000 are eaten each year.

3. Free drinks for everyone!

After such a dense feast with pizza, the organisms of Microsoft employees, like the body of any person, require replenishment of fluid reserves, so people in this company need a huge number of available drinks. But for them this is not a problem. All drinks, which are offered in cafeterias and vending machines of Microsoft, are provided free of charge.

According to the same statistics, the Redmond staff drink nearly 12 million liters of various drinks every year, 40 percent of which are Coke Zero. Sugarless.

4. M&M's to everyone!

Pizza, coca-cola, and what for dessert? The correct answer is the M&M chocolate candies, but only in honor of some anniversary. Microsoft employees celebrate every anniversary of a major event by eating a huge stock of this delicious treat. At the same time, employees bring these sweets themselves to the company. Some people from the company, leading public blogs, have repeatedly said that for every Microsoft employee who has worked in the company for another year there is an unspoken rule of bringing about 500 grams of M & M sweets to share with their colleagues. Thus, if you, for example, worked at Microsoft for 8 years, then with you at least 4 kg of M & M with a taste of your choice.

5. The Redmond campus is overrun by rabbits

Do you like to find Easter eggs in Microsoft products? But the company itself is not so happy when someone mentions something related to this "Easter tradition". It turns out that the campus of the Redmond giant was literally flooded with rabbits. Once Microsoft even had to ask the local authorities to help them with control over the population of these pussies. According to some unofficial sources, it all started back in the 90s of the last century, when someone released several dozen rabbits near the campus and they began to practice ... their rabbit cases (if you understand what is at stake), which quickly led to a big problem for everyone.

6. Originally, the Windows operating system was called Interface Manager

We all know that Microsoft's operating systems are called Windows, because they use, em, windows. However, there was a time when Bill Gates and Paul Allen considered a completely different name for this OS.

The first version of Windows, which eventually got a simple name for Windows 1.0, was launched on November 20, 1985, and Bill Gates originally wanted to sell it under the name Interface Manager. The reason was very obvious: the new operating system used an interface that allowed users to work with different files. Of course, this OS is still based on MS-DOS, but introduced a number of significant innovations at that time.

Roland Hanson, head of Microsoft's marketing department, is the very person who proposed the idea of calling the new Windows operating system, pointing out that this name will help to promote the new product more effectively.

7. Bill Gates never wanted to create a 32-bit operating system

The co-founder of Microsoft, and now the technical director, Bill Gates in the 80s of the last century said that "the company will never make a 32-bit operating system." Despite the fact that at the time this statement seemed really serious to many, Microsoft in 1992 released a 16-bit and 32-bit versions of the Windows NT operating system, that is, almost 10 years after Bill made a statement.

Since then, the company continues to develop 32-bit operating systems, including Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 8.1. It should be pointed out that 64-bit versions of Windows are sold much better, but the fact remains - the speech about 32-bit versions turned out to be one of Bill's unsuccessful predictions.

8. 75 percent of the company's employees are men

As indicated at the beginning of this article, at the moment, Microsoft employs almost 94,000 employees around the world. With the purchase of Nokia, the number of employees of the Redmond company will increase by another 25 thousand. Despite the fact that in today's world the highest posts are more often occupied by women (for example, the head of Yahoo, Marissa Meyer), 75 percent of all Microsoft employees are men.

Of course, there are several women who hold high positions in Microsoft, at least Julie Larson-Green, who is now the head of Windows (after Stephen Sinofsky's resignation).

9. During a job interview, candidates are asked strange questions

It will not be difficult to arrange for Microsoft if you have all the necessary skills for the vacancy that opens. However, candidates for work sometimes have to answer very complex and unusual questions during the interview. For example, some applicants indicated that the candidates were asked questions about why the covers of sewer hatches are round, not square, say. Others were interested in the weight of the Boeing 747.

But this is still far from the most tricky examples. One such is, for example, a question during an interview (found on pingdom.com):

"You have a basket with chewing sweets. Red, blue and green. You close your eyes and take out two candies of a certain color. How many sweets do you need to get out of the basket, so that the likelihood that you will get two candies of the same color was one hundred percent? "

10. Apple in 1983 accused Microsoft of stealing the concept of a drop-down menu

Microsoft and Apple still remain irreconcilable rivals in the market, but in 1983 the heat of passion between the two companies was such that it came to litigation. At that time, Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, was very upset (and in fact - practically tearing and metal) when he learned that the new Windows 1.0 operating system has a lot in common with its own Macintosh operating system. The co-founder of Apple was ready to sue the software giant for stealing the ideas of fonts and drop-down menus for the new OS.

In turn, Bill Gates was able to protect the user interface of Windows 1.0, explaining that he used in it the concept of design invented by Xerox, but at the same time decided to skip some details about the elements that he also used in Windows 1.0 to avoid litigation.

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