The hottest news last night was about ValueAct Capital, the hedge-fund that took over a $2 billion stake in Microsoft. ValueAct founder Jeffery Ubben promised a statement later in the day.
And now StreetInsider.com is reporting Jeffery as saying that the technology titan has a lot of potential for growth in the near future — thanks in no small part to its cloud-based solutions like Windows Azure and Lync.
In fact, if everything goes according to plan, Ubben believes that Microsoft could soon become the world’s largest company. Not the world’s biggest technology company, the largest company, period!
ValueAct has taken control of 62 million Microsoft shares with its $2 billion investment, and it represents 1 percent of Microsoft’s net worth, give or take.
And even though Ubben did not go into the specifics, particularly on what sorts of changes ValueAct may bring for Microsoft’s business, he did predict that it could take the technology titan three to five years to lay claim to being the biggest player.
This will hold particularly true if Microsoft continues its emphasis on cloud services and enhancing its Office suite of productivity software.
While some of this may very well be investor talk, there is no denying the fact that Redmond has expanded and enhanced its business in recent years by making its mark fields like hardware, mobile, cloud and enterprise software.
This is in addition to its core business endeavors like search engine, video gaming, entertainment, business and operating systems. And with things like wearable computing and other such innovations in the pipeline, the only way for Microsoft is up.
What the future holds may well be a mystery — but this much is certain that you will have to think really hard to name a technology company that is engaged on so many fronts.
