Microsoft (MSFT 1.87%) has grown into a massive company with a market cap of more than $2.5 trillion, so it's not a surprise that many investors think the company's upside is rather limited. However, in this Fool Live video clip, recorded on Nov. 15, Fool.com contributors Danny Vena and Jason Hall explain why they're not so sure.
Danny Vena: You know what's really interesting to me about Microsoft, is if even a few months ago, you would've said a company is going to strongly surpass Apple's (AAPL 1.69%) market cap, people would have essentially shook their heads and said, I don't know, maybe. But that's something that Microsoft has done. Microsoft really is a company that needs little introduction. The company has numerous businesses that it operates.
If you are on a computer, there is a strong likelihood that you have a Microsoft operating system on your computer. If you are using Word or Excel, you're using Microsoft Office Products. If you are using a work-based social network in LinkedIn, that is a Microsoft property. Dynamics, which is an accounting software. That's not even the big business. More personal computing handles Windows, original equipment manufacturer licenses, commercial products, Xbox, advertising revenues surface. Talk about a diverse group of businesses that really can deliver overtime and that's what Microsoft is.
I think one of the biggest opportunities out there right now is the fact that Microsoft Intelligent Cloud and Azure Cloud is growing as quickly as it is. In fact, it's actually growing faster than Amazon's (AMZN 2.47%) Cloud. One of the things that I really noticed following Microsoft through the pandemic was, that when one portion of the business, when one segment of business got hammered by the macro-economic conditions, another one sword. Everything picked up in the cloud. People started buying computers at home, whereas store bought stuff was lagging, and yes it offers a dividend.
This is a company that I think is one that you can buy the stock, stick it in your portfolio, forget about it and go back in 10-years and even if you didn't look at it at all, this is a stock that I'm confident would produce market-beating returns and that's why I actually ranked this pretty highly. I ranked this I think number four. The only reason that I ranked it below Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A 1.60%)(BRK.B 1.65%), which I did, was because I think there's the potential for some regulatory issues. I think that the environment right now is that governments are looking very closely at tech stocks, and companies that they believe have something of own section of the market that control it too highly. I think Microsoft could potentially face some regulatory hurdles along with other tech stocks. But again, I think this is one that you could just put in your portfolio and forget about.
Jason Hall: I love Microsoft today, I really do. The thing that I keep coming back to and I'm not going to lie. There is a little bit of price anchoring here, thinking about how large the company's market cap has become. I know it's still growing at a great rate and the prospects are still there. But the thing I think coming back to is that Microsoft is a great company today because of Satya Nadella.
It was a good company for a very long time. Satya Nadella came in, broke its culture, broke it down, broke all of those silos down, refocused the business on where it needed to be focused, and it is now a great company. The thing that makes me concerned about it as an "own forever" stock is, I'm not sure if that culture is deep enough in the business now that a post-Satya-Nadella-Microsoft would still be one of the best companies in America. I think it's probably the case, but we've seen Microsoft not be that for a long enough period of time.
