IMPLEMENTING PRODUCT DIVERSIFICATION STRATEGIES FOR THE SUSTAINABILITY OF A TECHNOLOGY COMPANY - A CASE OF MICROSOFT CORPORATION

Started in 1975, with a view to develop and vend BASIC interpreter, today, Microsoft develop, produce, license, support and sell worldwide software, user-level electronics, personal computers, and allied services. The company is world-famous because of its best software products Windows operating systems, Office suits, IE and Edge. The company’s notable hardware pieces are Xbox and Microsoft Surface family touch-screen computers. The company is listed as the top software company by Forbes Global for many years. From its inception to date, the company is maintaining top ranking technology-wise, product-wise, service-wise, revenue-wise, and growth-wise. It is possible for the company to sustain growth because of the integration and implementation of product diversification strategy. Over the years the company transformed from just a developer and seller of interpreter to producer & marketer of wide variety of software-hardware products. This paper analyses the strategies the company adopted and incorporated in diversifying product and services lineup to sustain growth and maintain market stability. It also analyses the relevance and acceptability of different Microsoft products, its customer base, and software market share and near future strategies.