Microsoft Sets New Records - What Does Microsoft Know?

Microsoft's cloud revenue (Azure) grew 116 percent, Microsoft's stock has risen 4% and it's acquired the treasure drove of data that is LinkedIn. They even considered acquiring Slack in 2016 for $8 Billion. It's safe to surmise that Microsoft knows Big Data.

Microsoft Knows Mixed Reality

While it may not get the press of some tech companies, Microsoft is at the bleeding edge of many fields including it's fascinating mixed reality HoloLens.

#FutureRunDown

Microsoft Knows Chatbots

Microsoft is on the cutting edge and plans to create a bot search engine.

By being pretty agnostic, Microsoft Bot Framework, a tool kit for making bots that connects with half a dozen other platforms currently being used by more than 45,000 developers, since its launch in April, has grown to include integrations with Facebook Messenger, Kik, and, as of two weeks ago, Slack.

Microsoft Knows Artificial Intelligence

In the highway to AI that is the chatbot revolution Microsoft is well positioned with its acquisition of Skype for $8.5 billion in 2011. In 2016, it also formed the Microsoft AI and Research Group.

Microsoft would argue that it has the best "brain," built on nearly two decades of advancements in machine learning and natural language processing, and, a long history of making bots. However, to compete with the likes of Google, Amazon and Apple admittedly won't be easy.

“AI is at the intersection of our ambitions,” Nadella said, noting how it will allow us “to reason over large amounts of data and convert that into intelligence.”

Microsoft is a 40+ year old company, it doesn't require bling like Snap Inc., so when Nadella took over as the CEO of Microsoft in early 2014, the public didn't know how good Microsoft was getting.

What's Making Microsoft Hot?

Shares of the technology company hit an all-time high one Friday in late October 2016, breaking through their 1999 dot-com era peak to close up 4.2 percent.

Cloud is thought by some to be at a point where  gross margins could hit the 60% mark. Microsoft Knows Cloud.

Microsoft Knows the Future

Microsoft itself is setting new golden standards for speech recognition. This has possibly huge implications for voice commands in the IoT, EdTech sphere and real-time universal language translation.

Microsoft has to leverage AI further and faster with agents like Cortana, applications like SwiftKey and Office 365, and developer tools and platforms like the Cortana Intelligence Suite and the Azure cloud computing platform. There's still huge upside to its products inspite of luke warm B2C responses to its Windows 8 and 10.

Net income of $4.7 billion is worth watching, and even with the following growth, I think we can expect higher heights for Microsoft:

• Office 365 consumer subscribers increased to 24.0 million
• Office 365 commercial revenue growth of 51% 
• Azure compute usage more than doubling year-over-year

We are helping to lead a profound digital transformation for customers, infusing intelligence across all of our platforms and experiences. - CEO of Microsoft

Microsoft Knows Survival

Microsoft has proven it has transitioned to the cloud, but can it transition as seamlessly to AI? It will have to compete and continue to pivot in ways that not only follow trends, but lead them.

Satya is the Sanskrit word for truth, and with Satya Nadella, there's something about Microsoft, with him at the helm that's not just setting share-price records in 2016, but getting some of us excited about Microsoft again.

Microsoft has shown it can handle the tests of time in the radically shifting field of computing, though to overcome flat sales and missing out on mobile, it must still show it can keep up with Google and pivot like an Amazon.

Microsoft Knows Collaboration

How Microsoft leverages LinkedIn, Skype, Yammer and other pieces of the puzzle to offering a more personalized computing experience will be key in how it elevates its brand to the next level.

LinkedIn's mobile presence gives Microsoft some skin in the game, but what can it become? How smart, integrated and personalized can Cortana Intelligence Suite become across channels, software and platforms?

Do you think Microsoft has seen its best days or can it reinvent itself further and prove its still a pivotal technology brand to the world?