Microsoft Windows is a series of graphical interface operating systems developed,marketed,and sold byMicrosoft.
Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20,1985 as a graphical operating system shell for MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs).[5] Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal computer market with over 90% market share,overtaking Mac OS,which had been introduced in 1984.Every year since 2012,Microsoft Windows has been outsold by the mobile operating systemAndroid that runs on tablets ("personal computers") and smartphones; in 2013,Android-based devices outsold Windows' 2.8:1 (2:1 in mature markets) or by 573 million units (estimating the gap to widen much in 2014 and 2015).[6][7][8] An estimated three billion Android smartphones only (with tablets selling similar to desktop PCs) will be sold by the end of 2014 (including previous years) rivaling Windows installed base in PCs.
As of April 2014,the most recent versions of Windows for personal computers,smartphones,server computers andembedded devices are respectively Windows 8.1,Windows Phone 8.1,Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Embedded 8.A specialized version of Windows runs on the Xbox One game console.
--Wikipedia