Microsoft: Faster, Stronger, Better

Five months had passed since Steve Ballmer announced his retirement in August 2013, and Microsoft was still searching for a CEO to replace him. Investors cheered the idea of new management, but some had begun to wonder if the long wait was another sign of failure for the struggling behemoth. In recent years, Windows had become a reason to stay away from PCs, not buy them. To make matters worse, Microsoft had missed the mobile revolution driven by Apple and Google.

 

It was primed for a disruptive, outside candidate, but ultimately Microsoft (ticker: MSFT) plucked one of its own, Satya Nadella, a 22-year veteran who had most recently run its cloud efforts. It turned out to be a stroke of genius. Microsoft shares have soared 48% since Nadella’s appointment, and employees are raving about his demeanor and vision for a bolder and more empathetic company…

 

Freed from Ballmer’s grip, Microsoft’s Redmond, Wash., campus feels vibrant and alive—the company’s shares are up 67% if you count from the day Ballmer announced his retirement. Microsoft’s vast scale has become an asset, rather than a liability. The company is going head to head with Amazon.com (AMZN) in the cloud. And it’s building new hardware that rivals Apple’s (AAPL) in imagination and attention to detail. The latest Windows, a big jump in technology, was offered free to existing users for the first time. Within 10 weeks, it was running on 110 million devices…

Read more from the source @ http://www.barrons.com/articles/microsoft-faster-stronger-better-1450511148