For technology investors, the cloud is certainly not a new investment concept. However, even in 2018, the cloud services technology supercycle is just getting started and Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT) is becoming a larger part of the equation.
According to GBH Insights analyst Daniel Ives, Microsoft investors should expect enterprise spending on public and private cloud to accelerate in 2018. Even with new competition from Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) and Cisco Systems (CSCO), Ives says Microsoft’s cloud business is showing no signs of slowing down. In the most recent quarter, Microsoft reported an 89 percent year-over-year increase in Azure revenue.
“Based on our checks, Microsoft has clear momentum in the field and especially among partners, with Commercial Cloud now exceeding a $20 billion run rate, a number that the skeptics thought ‘was a pipe dream’ a few years ago,” Ives says.
He says the next big boom in Microsoft’s cloud business will be a shift toward higher-margin services, including Office 365.
Ives says Microsoft will still face stiff competition from Amazon.com (AMZN) as it attempts to convert businesses to the cloud model, but he sees 2018 as a window of opportunity for Microsoft. GBH estimates that 35 percent of application workloads will transition to the public and hybrid cloud over the next year. Ives says Microsoft may have a slight advantage over Amazon in this transition given its extensive network of more than 70,000 global partners.
“While AWS remains in a formidable position, we believe…
Click here to continue reading
Want to learn more about how to profit off the stock market? Or maybe you just want to be able to look sophisticated in front of your coworkers when they ask you what you are reading on your Kindle, and you’d prefer to tell them “Oh, I’m just reading a book about stock market analysis,” rather than the usual “Oh, I’m just looking at pics of my ex-girlfriend on Facebook.” For these reasons and more, check out my book, Beating Wall Street with Common Sense. I don’t have a degree in finance; I have a degree in neuroscience. You don’t have to predict what stocks will do if you can predict what traders will do and be one step ahead of them. I made a 400% return in the stock market over five years using only basic principles of psychology and common sense. Beating Wall Street with Common Sense is now available on Amazon, and tradingcommonsense.com is always available on your local internet!
