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Founded in 1975, Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) is a U. S based technology company. The company creates and sells software and service products, as well as hardware that makes them available to other services and brings new possibilities, makes life easier, and brings more value. The company's primary revenue stream includes the sale of software, hardware, and subscriptions to cloud services. Company's product portfolio includes operating systems, including productivity suites, server applications, and online advertising. It provides consulting and support services and it trains and certifies computer system integrators and developers.
The company’s business model is centred around three main segments: the new categories are productivity and business processes, intelligent clouds, and more personal computing. It derives its revenues from the sales of software products, services, devices, and subscriptions to cloud solutions. It sells its software products to consumers and businesses, provides cloud services such as Office 365, and hosts Azure. It also sells hardware products such as Surface devices and Xbox consoles. Also, Microsoft generates massive revenues through advertising on assets such as Bing and LinkedIn.
Microsoft’s collaboration with top marketers as well as technology enablers make Microsoft capable to combine a lot of things, develop an idea together and generate effective strategies for your client. They also add to Microsoft's move into new regions and sectors, bolstering its cloud focus, and reinforcing its position in the highly competitive tech industry. Here Microsoft uses the power of strategic partnership to get this done and to adapt faster on the wave of the digitalization in multiple sectors.
In April 2024, Cloud Software Group and Microsoft signed a strategic partnership with an 8-year duration to fortify Citrix’s virtual application and desktop delivery solutions and aid new cloud and AI services. The partnership enables the strengthening of the existing relationship between Microsoft Cloud and artificial intelligence and makes Citrix the strategic global Azure partner for Microsoft for its Enterprise Desktop as a Service Solution to improve customer outcomes, efficiency, and artificial intelligence solutions.
In Feb 2024, Microsoft partnered with Indian Artificial Intelligence company SARVAM for Advanced Voice Realism Generative AI solutions. The goal of the partnership is to combine Microsoft’s Azure cloud, NLP services, and Sarvam’s conversational AI applications targeted at the Financial services sector, to unlock new voice-driven solutions and customer experiences in sectors with Indian market applicability.
In January 2024, Vodafone, the global connectivity provider, and Microsoft revealed a 10-year strategic partnership to enable opportunities for businesses, the public sector, and consumers through digital platforms targeting over 300 million entities in Europe and Africa. With the partnership, both companies aim to leverage Microsoft’s generative AI to redesign Vodafone’s customer experience, extend the Vodafone Internet of Things connectivity platform, create novel digital and financial services for SMEs, and redesign Vodafone’s global data center and cloud strategy. Vodafone will invest $1. 5 billion to build cloud and customer-centric AI services over the next decade, which will be developed with Microsoft.
In early 2024, Eviden and Microsoft finalized a five-year strategic alliance for an amount of $2.8 billion to create next-generation data and AI solutions, Copilot, and cloud technologies. As part of the partnership, Microsoft will leverage its cloud capabilities and Evident's industry domain expertise to build innovative industry solutions in financial services, automotive, manufacturing, energy, healthcare and the public sector.
In October 2023, Split Software and Microsoft signed an agreement to develop a product experimentation service through Microsoft Azure. This integration empowered Microsoft clients to extend Split’s experimentation capabilities in the Azure App Configuration to run experiments and obtain insights to deliver products more rapidly and securely on the service, as well as assist developers in managing risk, innovating continually, and improving users’ satisfaction with delightful digital products via progressive delivery practices in building applications.
In October 2023, Microsoft and Siemens cooperated to design the Siemens Industrial Copilot, which is the generative workers’ assistant. The copilot is capable of outputting well-optimized and debugged automation code and thus can lower code development time.
During June 2023, Accenture and Microsoft announced that they will team up to jointly offer services to employers such as a combination of generative AI implementation at scale. Together, the two companies have worked to address the challenges of scale with generative AI that can be deployed with customers in Microsoft Azure, Azure OpenAI, and Microsoft 365 Copilot. This is a partnership that was designed to disrupt industries, and create value.
In June 2023, MicroStrategy and Microsoft entered into a partnership deal that covers the growth of MicroStrategy’s product offerings in the Microsoft cloud. The partnership was meant to leverage the analytical capabilities of both firms with the ability to improve business value from data that they generate for increasing the business value of their primary business activities and decisions.
In February 2023, Amdocs and Microsoft Corporation signed strategic alliance to launch a new customer engagement cloud platform. The partnership was intended to help service providers improve relationships with clients and consumers, improve the effectiveness of the business in all aspects, including service delivery, improve the chances of monetizing 5G, and transform cloud services for service providers to achieve simplification of complexity, solution provision to consumers and enterprise consumers, and business transformation.
Infosys expanded its Microsoft relationship to lead global cloud adoption by February 2023. Together, the partnership leveraged Infosys Cobalt and Microsoft Azure to introduce AI-led solutions to optimize business operations and enable cloud-first digital transformation helping enterprises move from automation to being AI-first enterprises.
In January 2023, OpenAI and Microsoft deepened their cooperation, with Microsoft investing billions to boost OpenAI’s AI research and development efforts. The partnership aims to promote safe, useful, and powerful artificial intelligence systems. Additionally, Microsoft will expand its supercomputing capabilities and integrate OpenAI models into various Microsoft products to create new forms of AI.
In December 2022, the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) and Microsoft entered into a 10-year strategic partnership for next-generation data and analytics and cloud infrastructure. Microsoft bought a 4% stake in LSEG to increase access to data, efficiency, and innovation in financial markets through cloud-based analytics and digital market services.
Microsoft announced a collaboration with NVIDIA in November 2022 to commercialize the production of state-of-the-art AI supercomputers that will be built on Microsoft Azure infrastructure to help businesses, governments, and academic institutions scale and synthesize AI to further mature generative AI. This collaboration was designed to expedite the development of AI and to introduce new AI capabilities to businesses.
Microsoft Corporation remains enthusiastic about its M&A activities to strengthen its technological assets, diversify products, and access new markets. These strategic actions are meant for innovation, improvement of the competitive edge, and changing customer requirements in certain areas such as data center performance, gaming, conversational AI, process mining, cyber threat analysis, and advanced networking technologies to grow faster and gain a better foothold in the field of technology.
In January 2023, Microsoft acquired the composable infrastructure platform Fungible Inc. to boost data center performance while maintaining security. With the acquisition, the Fungible team collaborated with Microsoft data center engineering teams to enable multiple DPU solutions, networking, and hardware developments to enhance data center performance.
In January 2022, Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard in a deal worth $68 billion to enhance Microsoft's gaming division. The deal aims to help Microsoft’s gaming segment, as well as mobile, PCs, consoles, and cloud computing, to create the solution for advance metaverse.
In March 2022, Microsoft completed its US$19.7 billion acquisition of Nuance Communications, which is one of the market leaders in conversational AI and ambient computing. The partnership aimed at ensuring that organizations of any sector can achieve business goals by unlocking its security-based cloud solution that is fortified with powerful artificial intelligence.
In June 2022, Microsoft acquired Miburo, a cyber threat analysis and research firm, to help in the improvement of threat intelligence research on foreign threats. The acquisition aimed to help Microsoft diversify its threat detection and analysis offerings by leveraging Miburo’s experience in identifying foreign information operations to inoculate against new cyber-attacks and respond to malign influence campaigns.
In December 2022, Microsoft acquired Lumenisity, a UK-based start-up company focused on developing so-called ‘hollow core fiber (HCF)’ technologies mainly for data centers and ISPs. With the acquisition, Microsoft aims to increase its capabilities for optimizing global cloud infrastructure and meet the high latency and security demands of its cloud platform and service customers.
Through its investment strategy, Microsoft strives to address the issues of technological advancement, improve its presence within the tech sector, and contribute solutions that will prove beneficial to society in the form of AI and cloud-based services. These investments are in line with Microsoft’s mission and vision of having technology help every person and business on the planet to do more and achieve more while at the same time ensuring that the technologies being developed and implemented with the highest ethical standards.
In June 2024, Microsoft invested SEK33.7 billion (US$3.21 billion) to expand its cloud and artificial intelligence presence across Sweden for two years. The objective of the initiative was to educate 250,000 people in artificial intelligence and integrate 20,000 high-performing GPUs into data centres across Sweden to enhance the country’s competitiveness and speed up computations.
In May 2024, Microsoft and OpenAI initiated the US$2 million Societal Resilience Fund, aimed at supporting AI literacy among voters and vulnerable groups. It has been established with the vision of increasing digital awareness and creating awareness about the proper use of AI to benefit the entire society.
In April 2024, Microsoft invested $1.5 billion in G42, an AI firm in the UAE, to take a minority stake and be appointed to its board. This will introduce Microsoft AI technologies and skilling programs in the UAE and other countries, while also offering AI safely and securely with the highest standards globally.
In February 2024, Microsoft and OpenAI aimed to invest approximately US$ 500 million into Figure AI, a humanoid robotics company. With the investment, Figure AI could be worth about US$1.9 billion and the first humanoid robotics unicorn. The partnership has the mission to transform several industries with human-like robots.
Microsoft moved through a significant global expansion process of over $10 billion in deals in various geographic locations, such as Malaysia, South Africa, Southeast Wisconsin, Indonesia, Japan, and Germany. Some of these strategic investments include investing in cloud and AI architectures, encouraging innovation, and preparing millions to unlock AI. All are designed on a regional level with the target of increasing efficiency, generating employment, and embracing AI in regional economies. This aggressive approach to expansion also defines Microsoft’s focus on enabling digital transformation and economic development across the globe.
In May 2024, Microsoft planned to invest US$2.2 billion for the four-year development project of the country’s digital economy in Malaysia. The investment aims to develop a cloud and an AI infrastructure, create 200,000 AI skills opportunities, develop an AI Center of Excellence, and improve cybersecurity, which is expected to enhance productivity and economic growth in Malaysia.
In May 2024, Microsoft committed $70 million for the next ten years to South Africa through the Department of Trade, Industry, and Competition (DTIC). The investment aims to help spur innovation, generate employment, and ensure the nation was ready for artificial intelligence.
In May 2024, Microsoft unveiled an investment plan to develop the region’s artificial intelligence in Southeast Wisconsin approximately US$3 billion. The money will create cloud computing and AI data centers, an AI manufacturing co-innovation center, as well as an AI talent development program that will train over 100K residents, making southeast Wisconsin an AI economy hub.
In April 2024, Microsoft declared a US$1.7 billion loan to Indonesia within four years, spurring the development of both cloud and AI infrastructure, skilling 840,000 individuals in AI, and accelerating the development of the local developer ecosystem. This marks the biggest single investment in Microsoft’s nearly three decades of operation in Indonesia, in support of the Golden Indonesia Vision 2045.
In April 2024, Microsoft has invested approximately US$2.9 billion on hyperscale cloud computing and AI initiatives in Japan. The investment was aimed at teaching over 3 million people artificial intelligence skills, opening an AI and robotics lab, and improving relations in the field of cybersecurity with the Japanese authorities.
In February 2024, Microsoft announced the idea to invest €3.2 billion in Germany by 2025 to increase AI and cloud power in data centers twofold. The amount will be invested to train about 1.2 million people in digital skills that will help German-based businesses and enhance the country’s technological framework.
Microsoft has a corporate strategy that explicitly emphasizes the creation and improvement of AI products. The company has unveiled Phi-3, a mini yet highly effective artificial intelligence model, as well as Copilot, an AI tool designed specifically for developers. The integration of Microsoft Copilot across its ecosystem and the introduction of the Azure OpenAI Service reaffirmed its dedication to AI accessibility. These strategic releases indicate Microsoft’s commitment to innovation and its mission to enable users with state-of-the-art AI solutions.
In April 2024, Microsoft launched Phi-3, which is a much lighter AI model than the previous versions, with a size of 3.8 billion parameters and high computational power. The Phi-3 Mini is currently accessible on Azure AIS Studio, HuggingFace, and Ollama and is more potent and less costly than the vast majority of AI solutions.
In November 2023, Microsoft GitHub introduced Copilot, an AI copilot that could learn and generate outcomes based on a firm’s non-public code. This integration enables developers to be more effective in developing new products, thereby increasing new productivity by up to 55%.
In September 2023, Microsoft released the Microsoft Copilot, an innovative AI assistant to transform human interaction with technology and increase efficiency. This solution connected the artificial intelligence features throughout Windows 11, Microsoft 365, Edge, and Bing to make an AI-integrated user experience across applications and devices.
In January 2023, Microsoft started the Azure OpenAI Service, which has ChatGPT inbuilt. This cloud-based platform allowed developers to create and launch applications by utilizing OpenAI technologies to drive the pace of AI adoption and advancement in different sectors and improve the product offerings of Microsoft Cloud.
In conclusion, Microsoft’s corporate strategy is dynamic and multifaceted and involves the interaction, expansion, and optimization of business partnerships, acquisitions, and investments to improve its competitive position and portfolio, as well as developing the market and social value of AI and cloud services. The company involves influential and emerging players in the industry to enhance its role as a technological giant. Similarly, its acquisitions and investments in new geographic locations and technologies also enhance its portfolio of products and geographical markets. Such a strategic approach enables Microsoft to sustain leadership in the tech sector and assist clients in their digital transformation.
