Tech giant Microsoft (MSFT) landed a pretty hefty win, even if it apparently was not the win that investors were looking for. Accenture (ACN) agreed to bring Copilot access to around 743,000 Accenture employees, which gives Microsoft a big new user base to work with. Investors were less than pleased, though, and sent shares down nearly 2% in Wednesday afternoon’s trading.
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This deal, reports noted, represents the biggest enterprise deal that Copilot has seen yet. Microsoft has been struggling for some time to turn more of its customers into subscribers, and this move represented one of the biggest pushes in that vein in some time. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed, reports note, but it certainly gives Microsoft a leg up.
Copilot adoption in general has not been quite what Microsoft had in mind of late, and less-than-reliable growth in the cloud market has also not improved investor sentiment. This measure gives Microsoft not only a reliable new platform, but also a way to demonstrate to concerned investors that there is demand in the field for what Microsoft has to offer. It is now only a matter of finding that demand.
Easier to Publish
This is a move that might be a big help to Microsoft in the short term, but not necessarily so in the long term, especially once the Xbox Helix starts rolling out. Microsoft recently opened up access to what is known as the Game Package Manager system, which is intended to make it easier to publish games to Xbox.
Game Package Manager offers a branch gallery that clearly separates Live packages from Draft packages, which puts the Live packages in an “external-facing sandbox” for players. Draft packages, meanwhile, are kept only for Partner Center users. Package validation is now available as well, which should help catch some errors before going live for full Certification.
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 two Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After an 8.6% rally in its share price over the past year, the average MSFT price target of $565.77 per share implies 33.79% upside potential.
