MSFT Up In Volatile Market Stocks plunged in early trading, then spiked up and tumbled down again as new U.S. jobless claims rose unexpectedly last week. This is further evidence of a weak labor as President Barack Obama prepares his address to Congress on the issue. Shares of MSFT are up, along with a few other tech stocks, despite the fact. Upcoming catalysts include the company's
analyst day at its new developer conference (BUILD) on September 14;
Windows Phone 7 / Mango rollout and adoption with hardware partner
Nokia; strides against current market leaders in cloud computing; any entrance in the tablet market; making money in the online business, including integration of
Skype and improving the search / display business; and continued evolution of
Kinect and next generation
Xbox console. The stock currently trades at
7.4x Enterprise Value / TTM Free Cash Flow.
Rick Sherlund (My Former Goldman Boss) Is Back! (Forbes) Nomura Securities analyst Rick Sherlund initiated coverage on
Microsoft with a Buy rating and $32 price-target. Thoughts:
- He believes the stock is "compelling at current levels as the company repositions itself...all with investor sentiment at negative extremes (even our cab driver dislikes the stock)."
- It's time for Microsoft to reinvent itself (this is coming from the man who took the company public).
- He does have "concerns about near-term PC demand and...competitive encroachment by smartphones and tablets."
- That said, Rick believes "the market is currently undervaluing Microsoft’s initiatives to address the upcoming convergence of touch-based notebooks and tablets, cloud-based services that facilitate the synchronization of information between Windows desktop and mobile devices and a bold strategic effort to sway its developers to better compete with the ecosystem of developers on the Apple iOS and Google Android platforms."
And there you have it.
Read » There's A Lot Riding On Microsoft's Analyst Day And Developer Conference Next Week (Reuters) When
Windows chief Steven Sinofsky shows off an early version of its next touch-enabled, tablet-friendly operating system (code-named Windows 8) to independent developers next Tuesday, there is a sense that it really matters. Todd Lowenstein, portfolio manager at HighMark Capital Management, says, "Investors are hungry to see how they are going to join where the market's going. They've been lagging and they need to catch up and surpass what's going on, to demonstrate they truly are an innovative company."
Read » Microsoft And Twitter Extend "Firehose" Relationship (ZDNet) Twitter and
Bing announced that they have extended their deal that allows
Bing to tap into Twitter's information. As for
Google, which Twitter's been on the outs with since July, there's no similar happy news to report (
presumably in preparation for building a new one around information from Google+). A Microsoft spokesperson said the two parties were extending their collaboration. No word on what that is beyond what is currently offered nor deal terms (but earlier this summer Microsoft was reportedly balking at Twitter's price of $30 million a year).
Read » Microsoft Paring Back On Middle Management, Finally (ZDNet) Microsoft bought natural language search company Powerset three years ago to improve Bing, and now its former CEO Barney Pell has left the company. But his departure is part of a bigger trend. Steven Sinofsky cut a lot of middle management roles in the Windows group, and now that virus seems to be spreading.
That's great news for shareholders and Microsoft employees. One of the worst problems with Microsoft over the last ten years has been its bloated, inefficient, turf-protecting corps of middle managers.
Read » Halo Creator Bails Microsoft To Start Own Studio (Kotaku) Ryan Payton, a creative director for Halo 4, is leaving Microsoft's 343 Industries to start his own studio. Why? He's burnt out. While he doesn't regret his time working on the game, it appears that working on such a large-scale endeavor meant that he had less influence on the project than he would have liked.
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