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Microsoft's Market Value Hits a Dot-Com Era Milestone: $600 Billion (wsj.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft's value is returning to tech-bubble peaks. The software giant closed with a market value of $600 billion Thursday for the first time since January 2000, according to the Journal's Market Data Group. Shares rose 0.4 percent to $77.91, setting a fresh all-time high. For the year, Microsoft shares are up 25% and on track for their best year since 2013, as the firm continues its rebirth as a force in cloud-computing. The firm is the third-largest S&P 500 company in market value, trailing Apple (about $800 billion) and Google's parent company, Alphabet, (about $690 billion). In July, fellow technology and internet stalwarts Facebook and Amazon.com joined the trio as the only U.S.-listed companies valued at more than in the $500 billion. The last time Microsoft was over $600 billion back in 2000, it didn't stay there for long. The tech bubble would peak in March of that year, and the Nasdaq Composite Index wouldn't climb back to the level it reach that year until 2015.
Adjusted for inflation MS would have to reach a value of 877 billion to match the 2000 value of 600 billion.
Title of the parent comment: "The heady days of the dot com bust..."
Recently I asked someone who works for an investment company if the U.S. stock market is in a bubble again. The answer was, "Yes, that's why we are buying stocks of foreign companies."
If, as in the years before 2008, stock brokers can convince a huge number of people that the stock market will continue to rise rapidly, the brokers can sell what they have for a huge profit, and there will be another crash, as in 2008.
How do they make money? That's simple: Azure, Office 365, Active Directory.
While nobody was looking, Microsoft developed a powerful and flexible cloud computing platform in Azure that integrates with businesses Active Directory and local network. It has warts, but the product is improving rapidly.
Office 365 solves business's email infrastructure woes, works well with all mobile devices, runs Sharepoint, gives all employees video conferencing tools to rival WebEx and Go2Meeting, provides all of the Office licensing they need, and does it for a very reasonable price.
Active Directory makes it easy to configure and set policies on every Windows desktop and server in a way that settings only have to be done one time. I'm sure the same could be done with LDAP, but nearly as quickly and easily. AD integrates with Azure, Office 365, and a large portion of third-party services. As a result, businesses run Windows because it lets everything work together with very little fuss, and the employees are productive. And productivity is what it is all about.
How the hell is Microsoft continuing to make money? I don't get it. They are hurting in every area as people bail on their garbage, proprietary software left and right.
Oh it's quite simple when you actually look at it rather than applying some of your wishful thinking to the situation.
Where is Microsoft hurting?
Not in Windows which still enjoys the largest market share of any desktop OS in the world.
Not in Office where most moves away from traditional desktop Office has turned into recurring revenue in the form of Office 365, and sometimes both at once for the same user.
Not in the enterprise where they are just finding new ways to up-sell people on yet more stuff (skype for business, sharepoint, etc)
Not in Gaming where Microsoft seems to be making close to $2bn per quarter.
Not in the Cloud where Microsoft has been closing the gap to AWS more and more every quarter and is now the number 2 service provider by a wide margin to number 3.
Not in Hardware with their Surface line of products being highly profitable.
Not in ... okay in Mobile they failed miserably.
So maybe if you look beyond the Slashdot comments section you'll realise that MS isn't actually failing at anything that matters and are laughing all the way to the bank.