... and Amazon.
... and Microsoft.
Microsoft draws cheers with Windows 8 news
11:49 am ET 12/07/2011 - MarketWatch Databased News
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Analysts expect Microsoft Corp. to launch the newest version of Windows in the second half of next year, after the software giant announced a beta release for the product set for February.
In reports on Wednesday, several brokers touted the latest news from Microsoft , which is designing the new operating system to work for tablet devices as well as traditional PCs. The company also announced at an event on Tuesday afternoon plans for an app store for the new platform that will give many developers a larger cut of the revenues than they currently get from Apple, which leads the current market for mobile app platforms.
Shares of Microsoft were down 0.7% to $25.45 on Wednesday morning. The stock remains down nearly 9% for the year.
"Win 8 is a [calendar] 2012 product catalyst that is not in numbers or the stock and at 9x EPS, we remain buyers," wrote Adam Holt of Morgan Stanley on Wednesday morning.
Microsoft hosted an event for developers in San Francisco on Tuesday. The company said it plans to release a beta version of Windows 8 in February. It also outlined plans for its "Windows Store," an online app marketplace for developers to sell apps for the new platform. The company said it will allow developers to take up to 80% of the revenues from the sale of apps, compared to the 70% cut they get from the Apple App Store.
Morgan Stanley's Holt said more than 3 million developers have downloaded the pre-beta release of the software over the last three months, and the more favorable revenue sharing could help garner the platform more support.
"With 1.25 billion PCs today, according to Gartner, a developer can reach $1M+ in revenues by targeting [less than]1% of the Windows base -- a more compelling value proposition for the developer community than other platforms," Holt wrote.
Walter Pritchard of Citi wrote that revenues from the Windows Store are not as important for Microsoft's overall business, which allows the company to be "more aggressive" in wooing developers.
"Games are an important application category and we expect this content to be front and center in Win8 as well as first-party Office application as differentiators of the product," he wrote.
He added that Windows 8 is "underappreciated by investors" and could become a catalyst for the stock.
"We continue to believe whether or not Microsoft can use Windows 8 to define its position in the 'Post-PC' era will be an important 2012 theme in software and paramount for Microsoft's share performance over the next 12 months," he wrote. |
