MSFT Down As Markets Sink Major indices are off in early trading Tuesday to kick off the short week on euro zone debt fears and worries that the U.S. economy will slip back into recession. Shares of MSFT are off with the rest of technology. Upcoming catalysts include
Satya Nadella, President, Server & Tools, participation at Citi's Technology Conference, Wednesday September 7; 1:50pm PT; 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 (see below); 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
7.3x Enterprise Value / TTM Free Cash Flow.
Researchers Believe Mango Can Obtain 20% Market Share By 2015 (Bloomberg News) Based on its history, you probably wouldn't expect to see
Windows Phone take off like a rocket. The alliance with
Nokia will open the floodgates for Windows Phone sales. Research out of both Gartner and IDC says that Mango may grab a whopping 20% of the market by 2015. Microsoft itself, whose current share is around 4% mind you, thinks the next version of Windows Phone will surpass those "conservative" estimates. Achim Berg, corporate vice president for Windows Phone marketing, has higher (delusional) expectations for the mobile OS than both Gartner and IDC.
Read » Microsoft's Declining Office License Revenue Will Keep Price-Target In Check (The Street) Microsoft's average revenue from its Office licenses sold to enterprise and retail customers has been declining due to competition from cloud-based apps and increasing lower priced products sales in emerging markets. With a 94% market share, Microsoft is looking at other alternatives like cloud-computing (Office 365). Trefis research estimates the average annual license revenue for Microsoft Office productivity software will decline from $47 in 2012 to $40 by 2018 indicating a $28 price target.
Read » All Eyes On Dividends Ahead Of Microsoft's Analyst Day (Barron's) When Microsoft holds its annual meeting with Wall Street next week, top of investors' minds will be higher dividends. People have
written a bunch about this in hopes that Microsoft might increase its dividend yield from a little under 2.5% at present. The annual meeting is the time when Microsoft's board considers such options, and there is an expectation of an increase. If they do, it likely won't be dramatic. The payout was increased by 23% last year, and 18% the year before that.
Read » Market Turmoil Presents Great Microsoft Buying Opportunity (Seeking Alpha) Times of market turmoil often present the best buying opportunities for savvy investors. Contrarians find their best investment opportunities during times of panic. There may be more volatility in front of us, even with the more than 10% drop in the market recently. Nevertheless, this may be a good point to start a position in several bargain blue chips, such as Microsoft. The stock is trading below analysts' estimates, with a median price target of $33 by 26 brokers and a high target of $37.
Read » Google / Motorola Opens The Door For Other Mobile Operating Systems (Reuters) Microsoft will be the winner in Google's acquisition of
Motorola according to
Acer. The deal makes
Google a direct rival to its phone-making clients. "They work against some of their clients," said Walter Deppeler, president of Acer's operations in Europe, Middle East and Africa. The acquisition was a "good gift" as it would lead some companies to go to another OS now that they had to compete against Google in hardware.
Microsoft should send Google a thank you letter.
Read » 
No comments:
Post a Comment