Microsoft Has a $2 Trillion Valuation. Why One Analyst Just Raised His Target Price.
Coming soon from Microsoft : a PC in the cloud.
For at least a year, there have been reports that Microsoft (ticker: MSFT) is working on a service called Cloud PC, code-named Project Deschutes, that would allow users to run their entire Windows PC experience on a per-user basis on the Azure cloud service. Think of it as Windows as a service.
Jefferies analyst Brent Thill wrote in a research note Monday that the launch of Cloud PC could come next month as part of the company’s Microsoft Inspire partner event, scheduled for July 14 and 15. The project “could be the next killer platform,” with particular appeal for small-and-medium sized businesses, Thill said.
He said that heading into its June 2022 fiscal year, Microsoft is looking for more growth from new product initiatives, especially from the increased integration of Teams with the newly launched Windows 11. Thill also said that while Windows 11 is primarily an effort to refresh the user interface, it carries new hardware requirements that may require many potential users to buy new PCs, or delay adopting the new version of Windows until they do.
Thill repeated his Buy rating on Microsoft shares, while boosting his target for the price to $310, from $290. Monday morning, the price was up 1.1% at $268.01, after trading at a record high of $268.45. The company now has a market capitalization of $2.017 trillion, making it the stock market’s second-most highly valued stock, after Apple at $2.253 trillion.
Write to Eric J. Savitz at [email protected]