Things have been rough at tech giant Microsoft (MSFT) lately, particularly for employees. Layoffs, firings, the return-to-office mandate…all of these things are contributing to what some are calling a “culture of fear” at Microsoft. But Microsoft itself may be more frightened than its employees. That fear is keeping investors interested, though, as Microsoft shares gained modestly in Friday afternoon’s trading.
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We have already seen some of CEO Satya Nadella‘s concerns on this front. But he also came out with an anecdote of his own, about his desire growing up to work at Digital Equipment Corporation, or DEC. DEC was a big deal in the 1970s, but soon found itself rolled under by IBM (IBM) and others. Several of Microsoft’s own employees, in fact, came from DEC; they were part of the team on Windows NT. Thus, it was easy to wonder how many Microsoft products—from Office to Azure—might not be necessary in an AI era.
This story haunts Nadella to this day, reports note, and potentially offers a reason why Microsoft is seemingly turning on its own employees. Microsoft employees have mentioned that morale within Microsoft is at ”…an all-time low.” So if the CEO of Microsoft is currently terrified of his company’s future, and frantically circling the wagons, then it should be little surprise that some of its own employees might be looking for a way out as well.
Tokyo Game Show Surprise
In much, much lighter news, the upcoming Tokyo Game Show will have a surprise extra guest coming in as a Microsoft Game Studios title will be shown. We do not yet know just what that title is, however, and that has outside viewers firing up speculation about what will be shown.
Current speculation suggests that this could be Forza Horizon 6, which would make sense. Earlier reports suggested that the next installment of Forza Horizon would be on hand, but it had yet to show up on the lists. Now, with this development, Microsoft may have slipped this major title in for a big launch trailer at a major game show.
Is Microsoft a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on MSFT stock based on 33 Buys and one Hold assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 16.81% rally in its share price over the past year, the average MSFT price target of $626.88 per share implies 22.53% upside potential.
