SEATTLE — Satya Nadella has put cloud computing at the center of Microsoft’s strategy. It is a move that looks to be paying off, at least in the eyes of investors.
On Thursday the company said its revenue and profit fell in the last quarter. But it mattered little, as Microsoft made more from cloud computing, and its stock jumped more than 5 percent immediately after the numbers were released.
The results underscored the good and bad trends that have come to characterize Microsoft’s financial results in recent years. On the negative side, there is the floundering personal computer business, which is hurting profits from longtime Microsoft software businesses, especially Windows. On the positive, the company’s cloud business keeps growing, giving investors hope that Microsoft will remain relevant for years to come.
The success of Microsoft’s cloud business under Mr. Nadella, its new chief executive, has put the company’s stock back in favor with investors. Even with recent anxiety in the stock market, Microsoft’s shares are up more than 28 percent for the last year, while shares in rivals like Apple, Oracle and IBM have declined by double digits.
By most analysts’ estimates, Microsoft is in second place in the most prominent segment of the cloud services market — in which computer storage and other services in data centers are rented to customers — after Amazon. IBM and Google are next.
For its second fiscal quarter, which ended on Dec. 31, the company reported net income of nearly $5 billion, or 62 cents a share, compared with $5.86 billion, or 71 cents a share, during the same period a year earlier.
Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/technology/microsoft-earnings.html?_r=0
On Thursday the company said its revenue and profit fell in the last quarter. But it mattered little, as Microsoft made more from cloud computing, and its stock jumped more than 5 percent immediately after the numbers were released.
The results underscored the good and bad trends that have come to characterize Microsoft’s financial results in recent years. On the negative side, there is the floundering personal computer business, which is hurting profits from longtime Microsoft software businesses, especially Windows. On the positive, the company’s cloud business keeps growing, giving investors hope that Microsoft will remain relevant for years to come.
The success of Microsoft’s cloud business under Mr. Nadella, its new chief executive, has put the company’s stock back in favor with investors. Even with recent anxiety in the stock market, Microsoft’s shares are up more than 28 percent for the last year, while shares in rivals like Apple, Oracle and IBM have declined by double digits.
By most analysts’ estimates, Microsoft is in second place in the most prominent segment of the cloud services market — in which computer storage and other services in data centers are rented to customers — after Amazon. IBM and Google are next.
For its second fiscal quarter, which ended on Dec. 31, the company reported net income of nearly $5 billion, or 62 cents a share, compared with $5.86 billion, or 71 cents a share, during the same period a year earlier.
Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/technology/microsoft-earnings.html?_r=0
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