Is Microsoft Office a subsidiary of Microsoft?

No. Office is a product family owned and developed directly by Microsoft Corporation, reported inside the Productivity and Business Processes segment.

Is Microsoft Office publicly traded?

Office is not separately listed. Microsoft Corporation trades on NASDAQ under ticker MSFT.

When was Microsoft Office first released?

Microsoft Office debuted on Macintosh in August 1989 and on Windows in November 1990, bundling Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

What is the difference between Office and Microsoft 365?

Microsoft 365 is the subscription service that includes the Office apps plus cloud storage, security, and Copilot features. Office 2024 is the one-time-purchase perpetual version sold for a single fixed price.

How many people use Microsoft Office?

Microsoft reports more than 450 million paid commercial Microsoft 365 seats. Consumer subscribers were last disclosed at 89 million in July 2025 and are estimated near 95 million in mid-2026.

Is Microsoft Office being discontinued?

No. The Office apps continue inside Microsoft 365 and Office 2024. However, support for Office 2021 ended October 13, 2026, and the consumer-facing app has been renamed around Copilot, which fuels recurring confusion about the brand's status.

Technology & Software

Who Owns Microsoft Office?

Microsoft Office is owned by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), headquartered in Redmond, Washington. The suite is sold mainly through Microsoft 365 subscriptions, which serve more than 450 million commercial seats and roughly 95 million consumer subscribers as of mid-2026.

Parent Company

Microsoft Corporation

Founded

1990

Status

Publicly Traded

Headquarters

Redmond, Washington, USA

Microsoft Office Timeline

1975

Microsoft Corporation

Parent company established in Redmond, Washington, USA

Company Founded

1990

Microsoft Office

Founded by Microsoft Corporation (internal development)

Founded

freemiumenterprise dominantGlobalenergy efficient datacentersaccessibility featurespaperless operationsOfficial Website

Who Owns Microsoft Office?

Parent Company: Microsoft Corporation
Ownership Type: Wholly owned
Company Type: Publicly Traded
Stock Ticker: NASDAQ: MSFT

Brand	Parent Company	Ownership Type
Microsoft Office	Microsoft Corporation	Wholly owned

History of Microsoft Office

Founded: 1990
Founders: Microsoft Corporation (internal development)

Microsoft assembled Office from parts built across the 1980s. Word shipped in 1983. Excel debuted on the Macintosh in 1985 and reached Windows in 1987. PowerPoint came through the 1987 acquisition of Forethought for about $14 million, Microsoft's first major software acquisition.

Microsoft bundled the three apps as Microsoft Office for Macintosh in August 1989, then released Office for Windows in November 1990. The bundle strategy was the product insight: selling the suite at a discount to the sum of its parts made it nearly impossible for standalone competitors such as WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, and Harvard Graphics to survive the 1990s. By the late 1990s, Office held overwhelming share in word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations.

Successive releases turned Office into default business infrastructure. Office 97 introduced Outlook. Office XP (2001) added product activation. Office 2007 replaced menus with the ribbon interface, the suite's most visible redesign. Office 2010 added web app versions of the core programs.

The model shift came in June 2011 with Office 365, a subscription offering that moved the suite to continuous updates and cloud services such as Exchange Online and OneDrive. Perpetual versions continued in parallel: Office 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Office 2024, released in October 2024.

In April 2020, Microsoft rebranded consumer Office 365 plans as Microsoft 365, folding in security and family features. In November 2023, it launched Microsoft 365 Copilot, a $30 per user monthly AI add-on for commercial customers. In January 2025, Microsoft raised consumer prices, taking Personal from about $70 to $100 per year and Family from $100 to $130 per year, bundling Copilot features as the justification, and renamed the Microsoft 365 app as the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. A higher Premium tier at about $200 per year followed in late 2025.

By mid-2026, Copilot had reached 30 million paid enterprise seats, up from 15 million in January 2026, and Microsoft announced a unified Copilot app combining consumer and work experiences. Office 2021 reached end of support on October 13, 2026, pushing remaining perpetual holdouts toward Microsoft 365.

About Microsoft Corporation

What does Microsoft own?
Microsoft owns a portfolio of technology brands including Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Windows, Xbox, LinkedIn (acquired 2016 for $26.2 billion), GitHub (acquired 2018 for $7.5 billion), and Activision Blizzard gaming franchises including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush (acquired 2023 for $69 billion). The company also owns Minecraft, Skype, Bing, Surface, and Dynamics 365.

Is Microsoft publicly traded?
Yes, Microsoft Corporation is publicly traded on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol MSFT. The company has been publicly traded since its IPO on March 13, 1986, at $21 per share. It is consistently one of the world's most valuable companies by market capitalization, with a market cap exceeding $3 trillion as of mid-2026.

Who founded Microsoft?
Microsoft was founded on April 4, 1975, by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The childhood friends developed a version of the BASIC programming language for the Altair 8800 microcomputer. Gates served as CEO until 2000, when Steve Ballmer succeeded him. Satya Nadella became CEO in February 2014.

Where is Microsoft headquartered?
Microsoft is headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA. The company moved to Redmond in 1986 after relocating from Bellevue, Washington, where it had been based since 1979. The Redmond campus spans over 500 acres and houses executive leadership, research facilities, and key business units.

How many brands does Microsoft own?
Microsoft owns approximately 15 major brands including Microsoft 365, Azure, Windows, Xbox, LinkedIn, GitHub, Microsoft Teams, Copilot, Dynamics 365, Surface, Minecraft, Skype, Bing, and Activision Blizzard franchises (Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Candy Crush). These brands serve enterprise, consumer, and developer markets globally.

Who owns Microsoft?
Microsoft is publicly owned with no controlling shareholder. Ownership is distributed among institutional investors including Vanguard Group, BlackRock, and State Street Global Advisors. Bill Gates has significantly reduced his stake through philanthropy and share sales. CEO Satya Nadella holds a meaningful ownership position through equity compensation.

What is Microsoft's revenue?
Microsoft reported revenue of $331.8 billion for fiscal year 2026 (ended June 30, 2026), up 18% from $281.7 billion in FY2025. Operating income was $155.2 billion, up 21%. Net income was $133.7 billion, up 31% on a GAAP basis. Microsoft Cloud revenue surpassed $214 billion, growing 27%.

What is the Microsoft OpenAI partnership?
Microsoft has invested approximately $13 billion in OpenAI since 2019, making it OpenAI's exclusive cloud provider through Azure. The partnership integrates OpenAI's GPT models into Microsoft products through the Copilot AI assistant. In FY2026, Microsoft's investment in OpenAI generated $4.96 billion in net gains, reversing $3.62 billion in losses from FY2025. Regulators in the EU and UK have examined whether the relationship constitutes a de facto merger.

Founded: 1975
Headquarters: Redmond, Washington, USA
Company Type: Publicly Traded
Stock: NASDAQ: MSFT
Revenue: $331.8 billion (FY2026, year ended June 30, 2026)
Employees: Approximately 223,000

Visit Microsoft Corporation website

View full company profile for Microsoft Corporation

Where Is Microsoft Office Made / Based?

Headquarters: Redmond, Washington, USA
Manufacturing / Operations: United States, Global cloud infrastructure

Microsoft Office Categories & Tags

Office Suite Productivity Microsoft 365 Word Excel Powerpoint

Microsoft Office Recalls & Controversies

Office's dominance has attracted decades of regulatory attention. Most recently, the European Commission pursued an antitrust case over Microsoft bundling Teams with Microsoft 365, which led Microsoft to unbundle Teams from enterprise suites in Europe in 2023 and globally in 2024; the Commission accepted Microsoft's commitments in 2025.

The shift to subscriptions has drawn criticism from users and IT departments that preferred perpetual licenses. The October 13, 2026 end of support for Office 2021, and the 2025 end dates for Office 2016 and 2019, force holdouts to either pay for Microsoft 365 or accept unsupported software.

The January 2025 consumer price increases, paired with the Copilot rebrand, generated backlash over paying more for AI features many subscribers did not ask for. Privacy researchers have also raised questions about Copilot's access to document and email content, though Microsoft states customer data is not used to train foundation models.

Microsoft Office Ownership: Pros & Cons

Advantages

+Largest installed productivity base in the world, with 450 million-plus commercial seats
+Subscription model generates predictable recurring revenue growing double digits
+Copilot monetization is scaling, from 15 million to 30 million paid seats in six months of 2026
+Deep file-format and workflow integration creates high switching costs
+Continuous feature delivery through Microsoft 365 rather than versioned releases

Considerations

-Subscription fatigue and January 2025 price increases push some users to alternatives
-Regulatory risk from bundling, demonstrated by the EU Teams case
-Office 2021 end of support in October 2026 forces disruptive migrations
-Copilot adoption is still low relative to the 450 million-seat base, near 7%
-Office brand dilution as Microsoft folds the suite identity into Copilot marketing

Frequently Asked Questions About Microsoft Office

Sources & Further Reading

Competitors to Microsoft Office

These competing brands operate in the same categories and provide similar products or services. Compare key attributes to understand market positioning and competitive landscape.

Brand	Parent Company	Country	Founded	Market Position	Primary Market	Gender Target
OutlookSister Brand	Microsoft	USA	1997	Enterprise dominant	Global	All-ages

Learn More About Competitors

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Outlook

Owned by Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft's personal information manager and email client application for individuals and businesses.

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X

Owned by X Corp.

Social media and microblogging platform formerly known as Twitter, owned by X Corp. and controlled by Elon Musk since October 2022.

social-mediamicrobloggingtechnology

Privately Owned

X is privately owned, unlike Microsoft Office which is under a publicly traded parent company.

Microsoft Corporation Stock Information

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Technology & Software

Who Owns Microsoft Office?

Parent Company

Microsoft Corporation

Founded

1990

Status

Publicly Traded

Headquarters

Redmond, Washington, USA