Overview of Microsoft Product Segments

•  Microsoft products are categorized into 3 segments, namely: Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, and More Personal Computing.
• From the 2019 annual report, the total annual revenue for the company was $125.8 billion; and the revenue from the 3 segments, and consequently their proportion of the earnings, was:
• More Personal Computing: $45.7 billion; 36.3% (45.7 billion/125.8 billion x 100).
• Productivity and Business Processes $41.2 billion; 32% (41.2 billion/125.8 billion x 100).
• Intelligent Cloud $39 billion; 31% (39 billion/125.8 billion x 100).

Break-down of Products in the Product Segments and Their Competitors

1. More Personal Computing

• This product segment consists of products and services geared towards harmonizing the interests of end users, developers, and IT professionals across all devices. The segment primarily comprises:
• Windows, including Windows OEM licensing (“Windows OEM”) and other non-volume licensing of the Windows operating system; Windows Commercial, comprising volume licensing of the Windows operating system, Windows cloud services, and other Windows commercial offerings; patent licensing; Windows IoT; and MSN advertising.
• Devices, including Surface, PC accessories, and other intelligent devices.
• Gaming, including Xbox hardware and Xbox software and services, comprising Xbox Live transactions, subscriptions, cloud services, and advertising (“Xbox Live”), video games, and third-party video game royalties.
• Search.
•  Competitors in this segment include:
• For Windows: various software products and alternative platforms and devices, mainly from Apple and Google.
• For devices: various computer, tablet, and hardware manufacturers including Apple and Windows OEMs.
• For gaming: console platforms from Nintendo and Sony.
• For search: Google and a wide array of websites, social platforms like Facebook, and portals that provide content and online offerings to end users.

2. Productivity and Business Processes

• This product segment consists of products and services in the portfolio of productivity, communication, and information services, spanning a variety of devices and platforms. It primarily comprises:
• Office Commercial, including Office 365 subscriptions and Office licensed on-premises, comprising Office, Exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Office 365 Security and Compliance, and Skype for Business, and related Client Access Licenses (“CALs”).
• Office Consumer, including Office 365 subscriptions and Office licensed on-premises, and Office Consumer Services, including Skype, Outlook.com, and OneDrive.
• LinkedIn, including Talent Solutions, Marketing Solutions, and Premium Subscriptions.
• Dynamics business solutions, including Dynamics 365, a set of cloud-based applications across ERP and CRM, Dynamics ERP on-premises, and Dynamics CRM on-premises.

•  Competitors in this segment are:
• For Office Commercial and Office Consumer: software and global application vendors, such as Apple, Cisco Systems, Facebook, Google, IBM, Okta, Proofpoint, Slack, Symantec, Zoom; numerous web-based and mobile application competitors; and local application developers.
• For LinkedIn: online recruiting companies, talent management companies, and larger companies that are focusing on talent management and human resource services; job boards; traditional recruiting firms; and companies that provide learning and development products and services.
• For Marketing Solutions: online and offline outlets that generate revenue from advertisers and marketers.
• For Dynamics business solutions: Infor, NetSuite, Oracle, Salesforce.com, SAP, and The Sage Group.

3. Intelligent Cloud

• This product segment consists of the public, private, and hybrid server products and cloud services that can power modern business. It primarily comprises:
• Server products and cloud services, including SQL Server, Windows Server, Visual Studio, System Center, and related CALs, GitHub, and Azure.
• Enterprise Services, including Premier Support Services and Microsoft Consulting Services.

•  Competitors in this segment include:
• For server products: a variety of server operating systems and applications offered by companies with a range of market approaches such as Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Oracle who offer their own versions of the Unix operating system pre-installed on server hardware.
• For web application platform software: open source software such as Apache, Linux, MySQL, and PHP.
• For middleware: Java vendors.
• For database, business intelligence, and data warehousing solutions offerings: products from IBM, Oracle, and SAP.
• For system management solutions: server management and server virtualization platform providers, such as BMC, CA Technologies, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and VMware.
• For products intended for software developers: offerings from Adobe, IBM, Oracle, among others; and also open-source projects, including Eclipse (sponsored by CA Technologies, IBM, Oracle, and SAP), PHP, and Ruby on Rails.
• For Azure: companies such as Amazon, Google, IBM, Oracle, Salesforce.com, VMware, and open source offerings.

Summary of Findings

• During this hour of preliminary research, we were able to find information on Microsoft products based on how the company reports on the different product segments, and their break-down, when filing its annual report. From the revenues reported, we provided the proportion of each product segment to show the importance or ranking of the segments. We were also able to find the company's identified competitors in the different product segment and sub-segment offerings.