Microsoft reported $3.46 in earnings per share, marking an 18% year-over-year increase, compared to an estimated $3.22. Its revenue jumped by 13% compared to the same period last year and came to $70.07 billion while Wall Street analysts expected $68.42 billion.

The company mostly benefited from the strong performance of its cloud business, which saw a 20% year-over-year increase. The revenue associated with its cloud computing platform Azure grew by 33%, with AI contributing 16 points to the growth. Analysts expected Azure’s revenue to jump by around 30% and AI to contribute 15.6 points of growth.

“We delivered a strong quarter with Microsoft Cloud revenue of $42.4 billion, up 20% (up 22% in constant currency) year-over-year driven by continued demand for our differentiated offerings,” Microsoft executive vice president and CFO Amy Hood shared in a statement.

Microsoft stock closed at $395.26 per share on Wednesday, being 5.57% down year-to-date. The stock then took off in the after-hours, reaching $429.60 per share at one point.

Several other tech stocks rose in the aftermath. Shares of chipmaker Nvidia jumped by 4%, Amazon’s stock rose by 3.08%, and shares of Meta Platforms jumped by 4.2%.

The post Microsoft Stock Soars on Better-Than-Expected Q3 Earnings appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Microsoft reported $3.30 in earnings per share compared to $3.10 per share estimated by analysts, while its revenue of $65.59 billion also came above the expected $64.51 billion mark.

However, the company expects its revenue in the current quarter to grow slightly above 10% and land in the range of $68.1 billion to $69.1 billion. On the other hand, the analysts expected a more robust growth, estimating $69.83 billion.

50% year over year to $14.92 billion. The consensus among analysts polled by Capital IQ was $14.58 billion.

One reason why Microsoft is expecting a weaker quarter is the heavy artificial intelligence spending that is starting to weigh in on its results. The company has been ramping up the outlay on AI in a more aggressive manner compared to its rivals but is still waiting for the profits to catch up. This included investing another $750 million in ChatGPT maker OpenAI on top of previous investments amounting to $13 billion.

Overall, Microsoft had $14.92 billion in capital expenditures in Q1, representing a 50% year-over-year increase and coming above estimates of $14.74 billion.

“AI-driven transformation is changing work, work artifacts, and workflow across every role, function, and business process,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement. “We are expanding our opportunity and winning new customers as we help them apply our AI platforms and tools to drive new growth and operating leverage.”

The post Microsoft’s Q1 Earnings Beat Estimates, Stock Slides on Weaker Growth Guidance appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

In a recent conversation with CNBC, Gates said that if he were to do it all over again, he would focus on artificial intelligence.

“Today, somebody could raise billions of dollars for a new AI company [that’s just] a few sketch ideas,” Gates shared.

Gates also laid out his plan for a hypothetical scenario. If he had enough capital, he would build a company that could challenge the AI giants like Nvidia, Google, or ChatGPT maker OpenAI. If not, he would look to tap into some unique aspects of AI and focus on employing artificial intelligence in a way that hasn’t been done before.

“I was lucky that my belief in software made me unique,” Gates explained. “ … Just believing in AI, that’s not very unique. So I would have to develop some unique view of how you design AI systems — something that other people didn’t get.”

Gates also had advice for young entrepreneurs who are looking to make their mark in AI. Instead of trying to compete with giants of the industry, they should think about ways the artificial technology could help businesses grow or improve everyday life.

The post Bill Gates Says He Would Focus on AI if He Was to Start Microsoft Today appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Davidson’s analysts gave Microsoft’s stock a rare downgrade from “Buy” to “Neutral.” They left their price target unchanged, keeping it at $475 compared to Monday’s closing price of $433.51 per share.

According to the investment firm, Microsoft is allowing competitors like Amazon and Google to challenge its leading position in employing artificial intelligence across its infrastructure and products. They believe that the company became too reliant on sourcing chips from semiconductor giant Nvidia, which will cost them their dominant position in the cloud market.

“Going forward, we think AWS [Amazon Web Services] and GCP [Google Cloud Platform] actually have an advantage over [Microsoft] Azure because they have the capability to deploy their own chips into their data centers, which are a fraction of the cost of an Nvidia GPU — something Microsoft has yet to do with its own chips,” D.A. Davidson’s managing director Gil Luria explained in a chat with Yahoo Finance.

Despite the downgrade from Davidson, Microsoft’s shares mostly remained flat on Monday. The company’s stock remains 16.89% up year-to-date but 7% down from its 2024 high in July.

The post Microsoft’s Stock Gets a Rare Downgrade From D.A. Davidson appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Other tasks that Copilot can perform include creating images using Image Creator, an image generator based on Open AI’s DALL-E 3 model. Thanks to an integration with Suno, Copilot can generate music as well. When it comes to writing news stories and other articles, Copilot can come in handy as well with its ability to search the internet for the most up-to-date information on news developments.

For programming professionals and others with an interest in coding, there’s the Github Copilot tool which is specifically used for generating code. What’s more, applications for Copilot are constantly expanding, with the tool now integrated into Microsoft 365 for use across Microsoft’s Office suite of applications.

The post Microsoft Enters AI Market With Copilot appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

The global IT outage was a result of a faulty software update by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike that caused computers running Microsoft’s Windows operating system to crash. The outage caused disruption across a number of industries, including aviation, healthcare, finance, and media.

While Delta wasn’t the only airliner hit by the outage, it was one that seemingly had the most trouble to recover. It had to scrap an estimated 5,000 flights across several days, with CEO Ed Bastian saying the airliner suffered a loss of $500 million and that it intends to sue Microsoft and CrowdStrike for damages.

Responding to Bastian’s claims, Microsoft said on Tuesday that they offered help to Delta in the aftermath of the global IT outage on a number of occasions, but their approaches were rejected.

“Even though Microsoft’s software had not caused the CrowdStrike incident, Microsoft immediately jumped in and offered to assist Delta at no charge,” said the company in a letter penned by its lawyer Mark Cheffo, an attorney at Dechert.

Additionally, Microsoft claims that the outdated IT technology used by Delta was the main reason why it needed longer to deal with the outage.

“Our preliminary review suggests that Delta, unlike its competitors, apparently has not modernized its IT infrastructure, either for the benefit of its customers or for its pilots and flight attendants,” Cheffo added.

The post Microsoft Claims Delta Refused It’s Offer for Help During Global IT Outage appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Microsoft reported $2.95 in earnings per share (EPS) and revenue of $64.7 billion, an improvement on $2.69 EPS and $56.2 billion in revenue for the same period of last year. The analysts expected $2.94 EPS and $64.5 billion in revenue.

The company’s cloud business brought in $36.8 billion in revenue, meeting the expectations of analysts, but its Intelligent Cloud division came short at $28.5 billion versus the estimates of $28.7 billion. Additionally, revenue from cloud services jumped 29% for the quarter, while analysts predicted a 31% growth.

Intelligent Cloud, which includes the cloud computing platform Azure and relies heavily on artificial intelligence solutions, is Microsoft’s biggest source of revenue.

“Our strong performance this fiscal year speaks both to our innovation and to the trust customers continue to place in Microsoft,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement. “As a platform company, we are focused on meeting the mission-critical needs of our customers across our at-scale platforms today while also ensuring we lead the AI era.”

Microsoft’s stock closed at $422.92 per share on Tuesday, marking a 14.03% jump year-to-day. In extended trading, the company’s shares fell all the way down to $391.00 at one point before bouncing back to $407.40.

The post Microsoft Stock Drops 7% After Disappointing Cloud Business Results appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Nvidia now has a market cap of $3.1 trillion. Apple itself became a $3 trillion company again on Wednesday, after its shares saw a slight increase by around 1% to push its market capitalization to $3.01 trillion. Microsoft continues to be the most valuable company in the US, with a market cap of $3.15 trillion following a 1.91% jump.

Nvidia has had a phenomenal year, seeing its shares surge 154.19% year to date. The company is benefiting from the high demand for its processors in the midst of the Artificial Intelligence boom. Almost all high-profile tech companies, including Microsoft, Google, and Tesla, use Nvidia’s hardware to power up their AI projects.

However, the high price of Nvidia’s shares won’t last much longer. The company announced last month that it will enact a 10-for-1 split in order to make its stock more affordable. This move will likely make the company’s shares even more attractive, especially for individual investors.

The post Nvidia Overtakes Apple as the Second Most Valuable Company on the US Stock Market appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Having fluctuated between both sides of the flatline, Microsoft shares rose by 1% after the company’s second-quarter earnings beat expectations. Microsoft raked in earnings per share (EPS) of $2.93 on revenue of $62 billion, beating expectations of $2.78 EPS on revenue of $61.1 billion. The PC maker’s cloud business raked in $33.7 billion, beating Wall Street estimates of $33.2 billion in revenue.

Google’s parent company Alphabet slumped by 5% after the company reported fourth-quarter earnings that failed to meet expectations. While total revenue of $72 billion beat a projected $71 billion, investors appeared more focused on the company’s inability to meet ad revenue expectations of $65.8 billion, with Alphabet earning $65.5 billion. Chipmaker AMD was also down 2% after hours with its earnings falling largely in line with expectations. AMD reported revenue of approximately $5.4 billion.

The post Nasdaq Slips as Tech Earnings Roll In appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

“Today’s announcement is a turning point for the future of AI infrastructure and development in the UK,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak declared on Thursday. This funding will more than double Microsoft’s data center footprint in Britain.

According to the UK government, this investment will be used by Microsoft to bring over 20,000 of its state-of-the-art Graphics Processing Units to Britain, thereby providing a launchpad for machine learning and developing AI. Plans also include training local British workers so that they are equipped with the skills they need to build and work with AI.

The post Microsoft to Invest $3.2 Billion in UK in AI Push appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Microsoft reported $3.46 in earnings per share, marking an 18% year-over-year increase, compared to an estimated $3.22. Its revenue jumped by 13% compared to the same period last year and came to $70.07 billion while Wall Street analysts expected $68.42 billion.

The company mostly benefited from the strong performance of its cloud business, which saw a 20% year-over-year increase. The revenue associated with its cloud computing platform Azure grew by 33%, with AI contributing 16 points to the growth. Analysts expected Azure’s revenue to jump by around 30% and AI to contribute 15.6 points of growth.

“We delivered a strong quarter with Microsoft Cloud revenue of $42.4 billion, up 20% (up 22% in constant currency) year-over-year driven by continued demand for our differentiated offerings,” Microsoft executive vice president and CFO Amy Hood shared in a statement.

Microsoft stock closed at $395.26 per share on Wednesday, being 5.57% down year-to-date. The stock then took off in the after-hours, reaching $429.60 per share at one point.

Several other tech stocks rose in the aftermath. Shares of chipmaker Nvidia jumped by 4%, Amazon’s stock rose by 3.08%, and shares of Meta Platforms jumped by 4.2%.

The post Microsoft Stock Soars on Better-Than-Expected Q3 Earnings appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Microsoft reported $3.30 in earnings per share compared to $3.10 per share estimated by analysts, while its revenue of $65.59 billion also came above the expected $64.51 billion mark.

However, the company expects its revenue in the current quarter to grow slightly above 10% and land in the range of $68.1 billion to $69.1 billion. On the other hand, the analysts expected a more robust growth, estimating $69.83 billion.

50% year over year to $14.92 billion. The consensus among analysts polled by Capital IQ was $14.58 billion.

One reason why Microsoft is expecting a weaker quarter is the heavy artificial intelligence spending that is starting to weigh in on its results. The company has been ramping up the outlay on AI in a more aggressive manner compared to its rivals but is still waiting for the profits to catch up. This included investing another $750 million in ChatGPT maker OpenAI on top of previous investments amounting to $13 billion.

Overall, Microsoft had $14.92 billion in capital expenditures in Q1, representing a 50% year-over-year increase and coming above estimates of $14.74 billion.

“AI-driven transformation is changing work, work artifacts, and workflow across every role, function, and business process,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement. “We are expanding our opportunity and winning new customers as we help them apply our AI platforms and tools to drive new growth and operating leverage.”

The post Microsoft’s Q1 Earnings Beat Estimates, Stock Slides on Weaker Growth Guidance appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

In a recent conversation with CNBC, Gates said that if he were to do it all over again, he would focus on artificial intelligence.

“Today, somebody could raise billions of dollars for a new AI company [that’s just] a few sketch ideas,” Gates shared.

Gates also laid out his plan for a hypothetical scenario. If he had enough capital, he would build a company that could challenge the AI giants like Nvidia, Google, or ChatGPT maker OpenAI. If not, he would look to tap into some unique aspects of AI and focus on employing artificial intelligence in a way that hasn’t been done before.

“I was lucky that my belief in software made me unique,” Gates explained. “ … Just believing in AI, that’s not very unique. So I would have to develop some unique view of how you design AI systems — something that other people didn’t get.”

Gates also had advice for young entrepreneurs who are looking to make their mark in AI. Instead of trying to compete with giants of the industry, they should think about ways the artificial technology could help businesses grow or improve everyday life.

The post Bill Gates Says He Would Focus on AI if He Was to Start Microsoft Today appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Davidson’s analysts gave Microsoft’s stock a rare downgrade from “Buy” to “Neutral.” They left their price target unchanged, keeping it at $475 compared to Monday’s closing price of $433.51 per share.

According to the investment firm, Microsoft is allowing competitors like Amazon and Google to challenge its leading position in employing artificial intelligence across its infrastructure and products. They believe that the company became too reliant on sourcing chips from semiconductor giant Nvidia, which will cost them their dominant position in the cloud market.

“Going forward, we think AWS [Amazon Web Services] and GCP [Google Cloud Platform] actually have an advantage over [Microsoft] Azure because they have the capability to deploy their own chips into their data centers, which are a fraction of the cost of an Nvidia GPU — something Microsoft has yet to do with its own chips,” D.A. Davidson’s managing director Gil Luria explained in a chat with Yahoo Finance.

Despite the downgrade from Davidson, Microsoft’s shares mostly remained flat on Monday. The company’s stock remains 16.89% up year-to-date but 7% down from its 2024 high in July.

The post Microsoft’s Stock Gets a Rare Downgrade From D.A. Davidson appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Other tasks that Copilot can perform include creating images using Image Creator, an image generator based on Open AI’s DALL-E 3 model. Thanks to an integration with Suno, Copilot can generate music as well. When it comes to writing news stories and other articles, Copilot can come in handy as well with its ability to search the internet for the most up-to-date information on news developments.

For programming professionals and others with an interest in coding, there’s the Github Copilot tool which is specifically used for generating code. What’s more, applications for Copilot are constantly expanding, with the tool now integrated into Microsoft 365 for use across Microsoft’s Office suite of applications.

The post Microsoft Enters AI Market With Copilot appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

The global IT outage was a result of a faulty software update by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike that caused computers running Microsoft’s Windows operating system to crash. The outage caused disruption across a number of industries, including aviation, healthcare, finance, and media.

While Delta wasn’t the only airliner hit by the outage, it was one that seemingly had the most trouble to recover. It had to scrap an estimated 5,000 flights across several days, with CEO Ed Bastian saying the airliner suffered a loss of $500 million and that it intends to sue Microsoft and CrowdStrike for damages.

Responding to Bastian’s claims, Microsoft said on Tuesday that they offered help to Delta in the aftermath of the global IT outage on a number of occasions, but their approaches were rejected.

“Even though Microsoft’s software had not caused the CrowdStrike incident, Microsoft immediately jumped in and offered to assist Delta at no charge,” said the company in a letter penned by its lawyer Mark Cheffo, an attorney at Dechert.

Additionally, Microsoft claims that the outdated IT technology used by Delta was the main reason why it needed longer to deal with the outage.

“Our preliminary review suggests that Delta, unlike its competitors, apparently has not modernized its IT infrastructure, either for the benefit of its customers or for its pilots and flight attendants,” Cheffo added.

The post Microsoft Claims Delta Refused It’s Offer for Help During Global IT Outage appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Microsoft reported $2.95 in earnings per share (EPS) and revenue of $64.7 billion, an improvement on $2.69 EPS and $56.2 billion in revenue for the same period of last year. The analysts expected $2.94 EPS and $64.5 billion in revenue.

The company’s cloud business brought in $36.8 billion in revenue, meeting the expectations of analysts, but its Intelligent Cloud division came short at $28.5 billion versus the estimates of $28.7 billion. Additionally, revenue from cloud services jumped 29% for the quarter, while analysts predicted a 31% growth.

Intelligent Cloud, which includes the cloud computing platform Azure and relies heavily on artificial intelligence solutions, is Microsoft’s biggest source of revenue.

“Our strong performance this fiscal year speaks both to our innovation and to the trust customers continue to place in Microsoft,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement. “As a platform company, we are focused on meeting the mission-critical needs of our customers across our at-scale platforms today while also ensuring we lead the AI era.”

Microsoft’s stock closed at $422.92 per share on Tuesday, marking a 14.03% jump year-to-day. In extended trading, the company’s shares fell all the way down to $391.00 at one point before bouncing back to $407.40.

The post Microsoft Stock Drops 7% After Disappointing Cloud Business Results appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Nvidia now has a market cap of $3.1 trillion. Apple itself became a $3 trillion company again on Wednesday, after its shares saw a slight increase by around 1% to push its market capitalization to $3.01 trillion. Microsoft continues to be the most valuable company in the US, with a market cap of $3.15 trillion following a 1.91% jump.

Nvidia has had a phenomenal year, seeing its shares surge 154.19% year to date. The company is benefiting from the high demand for its processors in the midst of the Artificial Intelligence boom. Almost all high-profile tech companies, including Microsoft, Google, and Tesla, use Nvidia’s hardware to power up their AI projects.

However, the high price of Nvidia’s shares won’t last much longer. The company announced last month that it will enact a 10-for-1 split in order to make its stock more affordable. This move will likely make the company’s shares even more attractive, especially for individual investors.

The post Nvidia Overtakes Apple as the Second Most Valuable Company on the US Stock Market appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

Having fluctuated between both sides of the flatline, Microsoft shares rose by 1% after the company’s second-quarter earnings beat expectations. Microsoft raked in earnings per share (EPS) of $2.93 on revenue of $62 billion, beating expectations of $2.78 EPS on revenue of $61.1 billion. The PC maker’s cloud business raked in $33.7 billion, beating Wall Street estimates of $33.2 billion in revenue.

Google’s parent company Alphabet slumped by 5% after the company reported fourth-quarter earnings that failed to meet expectations. While total revenue of $72 billion beat a projected $71 billion, investors appeared more focused on the company’s inability to meet ad revenue expectations of $65.8 billion, with Alphabet earning $65.5 billion. Chipmaker AMD was also down 2% after hours with its earnings falling largely in line with expectations. AMD reported revenue of approximately $5.4 billion.

The post Nasdaq Slips as Tech Earnings Roll In appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.

“Today’s announcement is a turning point for the future of AI infrastructure and development in the UK,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak declared on Thursday. This funding will more than double Microsoft’s data center footprint in Britain.

According to the UK government, this investment will be used by Microsoft to bring over 20,000 of its state-of-the-art Graphics Processing Units to Britain, thereby providing a launchpad for machine learning and developing AI. Plans also include training local British workers so that they are equipped with the skills they need to build and work with AI.

The post Microsoft to Invest $3.2 Billion in UK in AI Push appeared first on theprimarymarket.com.