Cloud based second wind propels Microsoft’s market value to $600 billion

Kareem Anderson

Despite the locals prepping their pitchforks, hot tar, and feathers for Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella over his seemingly at best lackadaisical or at worst, contemptuous attitude toward casual consumers, investors are gobbling up the new take-no-prisoners callous moves he has made over the past three years.

Investors are so impressed with Nadella’s strategy that the company is seeing a regrowth in its stock price that’s fueling a resurgence in Microsoft’s Market Value to the tune of $600 billion.

On the eve of Microsoft’s next quarterly report scheduled for Thursday, October 26th, 2017, a Wall Street evaluation of the company’s market performance surfaced, and the outlook appears to be rather rosy.

Yesterday, Microsoft closed the day with a market value of $600 billion, which is the first time in the last 17 years the company has been able to perform quite that well. It took the company releasing arguably the best version of its OS in Windows 7 to spark investors interest back in the day, but with Nadella slashing costly product categories and chasing the lucrative cloud market, Microsoft’s stock is looking pretty tempting to some.

Overall, Microsoft’s shares are up 25% for this fiscal period and pacing to be an investor’s best return since 2013. At $77.91 a share, investors are seeing roughly a $30 increase since Microsoft announced Satya Nadella as its new CEO and replacement for steady stock guru and former CEO Steve Ballmer.

While the future of the cloud fuels investors interest, it should be noted other key points of interest (KPIs) are helping form Microsoft’s new overall narrative. Items such as Microsoft’s successful Office pivot to a subscription model, revenues increasing per Xbox Live user, and commercial users using the company’s slightly more costly half-measure of hybrid solutions before fully adopting a cloud-only future.

We’ll see a clearer picture of how well Nadella is navigating some rather choppy waters on Thursday.