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The dreaded blows inflicted on the Facebook, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Alphabet actions of Google – since the end of the summer have had a most unexpected side effect.
Indeed, Apple, whose price has lost a quarter of its value since October 3, loses its title of the most expensive company in the world.
In addition, it was not exceeded this time by Amazon, who briefly beat Apple in September to hold this honor.
Instead, it was overtaken by Microsoft, a company that was largely neglected by investors for many years amid the excitement aroused by the FAANGs.
The stock market valuation of Microsoft on Monday briefly reached $ 812.93 billion (633.85 billion pounds sterling), against only $ 812.60 billion ($ 633.61 billion) for Apple, while Amazon was pulling back to 773 billion dollars (602 billion pounds sterling). Apple was back at the top at the closing of Wall Street Monday night, but if recent trends are maintained, Microsoft may well take the lead over the next few days.
Microsoft quickly surpbaded Apple to become the most expensive company in the world
This represents a strong comeback for Microsoft, which was a more valuable company than Apple in 2010, when you have to go back to 2003 to find a time when the company co-founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen – who died last month – was the largest in the world.
The reversal of fortune is not solely due to the fall of Apple's share price, which reflects concerns about the likely sales of iPhone, iPad and Apple Watches during the Christmas period as well as investor discomfort about the extent to which the company could be affected. by tariffs on electronic devices, like Apple, badembled in China.
It also reflects the turnaround achieved by Satya Nadella, who became CEO of Microsoft in February 2014, succeeding Steve Ballmer.
The contrast between the two men could not be greater.
The originally Indian executive Satya Narayana Nadella rebuilt Microsoft
Mr. Ballmer, a big man bear, was loud, loud, impetuous and aggressive in running his business.
It has positioned Microsoft as a fierce opponent of open-source software, such as the Mozilla and Firefox Internet browsers, which is open to everyone, anyone to watch or modify, and which is developed by programmers working in collaboration.
Mr. Ballmer hated that.
He described the Linux operating system, one of the best examples of free software, as a "cancer". He considered that it was an existential threat to commercial code producers such as Microsoft. This did not exactly create Microsoft's image as a user-friendly company. This has reinforced the image of Microsoft as a company hated by technicians and regulators.
Mr. Ballmer's biggest mistake was to ignore the growing threats of Apple, Google and Facebook in the early 2000s.
Microsoft, whose Windows product dominated desktop computing, was slow to anticipate the challenge of products such as the iPad to personal computers, while the development of Google's Android mobile operating system prevented Microsoft from dominating the market. smartphone sector in the same way as personal computers. Similarly, the rise of social networks such as Facebook has been completely missed.
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Microsoft was looking to catch up through acquisitions. But Mr. Ballmer's biggest investment, the $ 8.5 billion acquisition of the Skype Internet phone service in 2011, did not generate the cross-selling opportunities that he hoped for. . Its $ 7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone business in 2013 and $ 6.3 billion from the aQuantive digital advertising company in 2007 both destroyed shareholder value.
As a result, when Mr. Nadella – a much calmer and calmer figure – took control, Microsoft was an ambitious company. The executive of Indian origin has rebuilt it in several ways. While Microsoft once dominated the personal computer market, Mr. Nadella has invested heavily in the cloud, ensuring that the company now offers a range of services, including networking, software, databases, servers and storage.
Although the cloud is dominated by Amazon Web Services, Microsoft has imposed itself as the number two on the market with its Azure platform, surpbading Google. Nadella also cleverly positioned Microsoft as a company with which retailers should partner in e-commerce if they wanted to avoid doing business with Amazon's cloud computing platform.
Cloud computing and artificial intelligence are clearly the areas where Microsoft anticipates its growth in the coming years, rather than its traditional software activities, even if they remain profitable.
In games, the Sony PlayStation console probably has an unbadailable lead, but Microsoft's Xbox seems to hold up well to Nintendo as the company now manufactures more gaming software than gaming hardware, thanks in particular to the acquisition of Mojang for 2.5 billion dollars. the company behind Minecraft, seven months after Nadella became CEO.
Mr. Nadella also focused on other services, such as augmented reality, with products such as the HoloLens helmet.
But perhaps its greatest success has been to reposition Microsoft as a "cool" company in Silicon Valley, instead of the boastful and unloved company it was under Mr. Ballmer.
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LinkedIn's $ 26 billion acquisition in 2016 through LinkedIn enabled social co-founder Reid Hoffman, one of the best-connected personalities of the Valley, to join the board of directors. Microsoft administration.
Mr. Nadella introduced for the first time to Microsoft popular activities in the valley, such as hackathons. And, more symbolically, he sought to build bridges with the geekdom by paying $ 7.5 billion earlier this year to GitHub, which is used by 28 million software developers to work and store their code, the Ce kind of collaborative venture avoided by Mr. Ballmer.
This style change has not only changed the way the technology industry views Microsoft. The shift in focus within the company has helped to replenish profits and change the way investors view it. Its annual results published in July confirm that for the first time, its annual turnover reached $ 100 billion and is more profitable than in its 43 years of existence.
It is ironic that Microsoft, which spent the first years of this century beset by struggles against regulators, has reaffirmed itself in the world of technology at a time when young rivals like Facebook, Google and Amazon are find more and more on the lookout for these regulators. .
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