On Tuesday, Microsoft Corporation became the second public company in the US to hit $2 trillion in terms of market value and briefly joined the league of Apple Inc. The increase in the company’s value was caused by its dominance in cloud computing and enterprise software, which is expected to continue improving in the world after Covid.
In New York alone, Microsoft’s shares increased by as much as 1.2 per cent on Tuesday, which allowed the company to sit on the elite table alongside Apple. Before closing, however, the company failed to reach the threshold and fell short by $265.51. In December 2019, Saudi Aramco almost nearly that mark and currently has a market value of $1.9 trillion.
The growth and resurgence of Microsoft have largely been credited to its Chief Executive Officer, Satya Nadella, who assumed the position in 2014. Under his leadership, the company has become the largest seller of cloud-computing software. This is after taking into account both its Office application as well as its infrastructure cloud units.
What is interesting to note is that Microsoft is perhaps the only tech giant in the US that seems to have escaped the watchful eye of American antitrust regulators. As a result, the company has been able to acquire and expand on its own terms. This year, Microsoft has increased by 19 per cent, which is much higher than both Apple and Amazon.
Microsoft is becoming a jack of all trades, whether it is gaming through its Xbox offerings, or other aspects, such as cloud services, artificial intelligence, automation, and even analytics.
The company was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975 and is largely credited for laying the foundations and creating the computer software industry as we know it today. But it has not always ran a smooth course. In 1998, the company was suffered due to an antitrust lawsuit by the US government for bundling its product with Microsoft software in an effort to rival other competitive browsers, such as Netscape. The company was found guilty by a federal judge in 2000.
In order to reach the value of $1 trillion, the company took 33 years from its IPO. Meanwhile, for the next trillion, it only took two years. Apple also made history by reaching $2 trillion in 2020. Amazon has a market cap of $1.8 trillion, while Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has a valuation of $1.6 trillion.
