Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.