Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[nawee]

Hello,

Do we need "the" before company names? Or does it depend on individual companies? I think I have seen "the IBM", but I have seen "Microsoft" without "the".

Thank you,

Nawee

[Jintii]

In general, no, you do not need to put the before a company name, unless the company name itself begins with the (as in The Learning Annex).

However, sometimes you need the or a because of a noun that comes after the company name. Here is an example from the internet:

"For installation instructions, run one of the Microsoft applications such as Word."

Here, the really goes with applications, not with Microsoft.