Microsoft Corporation has ended the year as the most valuable publicly traded company for the first time since 2002. Its position at the top of the markets is a remarkable turnaround for the company which has spent the past years behind other major technology firms such as Apple (which it ironically helped to save in 1999 with a $150 million investment).
Microsoft’s resurgence is often attributed to the leadership of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who took over from Steve Ballmer. Nadella moved the focus on Microsoft to its cloud computing offerings, which allow companies to launch software on online servers to be accessible anywhere. It was a major break from Microsoft’s previous focus on its operating system Windows. Nadella’s efforts paid off, however, as Azure, Microsoft’s main cloud computing offering, now ranks second to Amazon Web Services and continues to post strong growth numbers.
Microsoft continues to face strong competition from Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet (parent of Google), and with that the number one spot could change hands several times in the coming year.
