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Microsoft ( MSFT ) received a vote of confidence Thursday from investment bank Oppenheimer & Co., which assumed coverage of the software giant with an outperform rating. Oppenheimer analyst Timothy Horan set a 12- to 18-month price target of 62 on Microsoft stock. Microsoft shares were up more than 1% to near 55 in midday trading on the stock market today . Microsoft gets a 75 Composite Rating from IBD out of a possible 99; the Composite Rating looks at earnings growth, stock price gains and a raft of other factors. Microsoft “is putting the right strategy in place to be at the forefront of the next generation of computing and to defend and grow market share,” Horan said in a report. “Instead of fighting the inevitable shift to the cloud, Microsoft is fully embracing it.” The company is offering enterprise customers a fully integrated hybrid cloud system that connects on-premise hardware and software with Internet cloud services, he said, adding that Microsoft has a competitive advantage through its large installed base of enterprise customers. “Microsoft controls over 90% of the enterprise office suite and about 75% of the enterprise operating system market,” he said. “As workloads shift to the cloud, we believe Microsoft will be successful in bundling in premium (software- and platform-as-a-service) products, enabling it to defend its market share and expand its total addressable market with new product offerings.” Oppenheimer believes that most information technology functions will shift to cloud services by 2020. Horan believes that Microsoft will be able to reach its goal of $20 billion in cloud revenue by fiscal 2018, up from a current annual run rate of $9.4 billion. Microsoft’s major cloud products include Office 365, Azure and Dynamics CRM Online. It competes in cloud computing with Amazon.com ( AMZN ), Alphabet ’s ( GOOGL ) Google, Salesforce.com ( CRM ) and others. RELATED: Microsoft Azure Cloud Service Seen Turning Profitable This Year Scalper1 News
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