Heather Leonard
Mar 25, 2011, 2:00 AM Photo: Microsoft

MSFT Up With Tech
Markets opened higher as jobless claims fell and retail giant posted higher-than-anticipated earnings. Trading volume is light, however, as we head into the last week of the quarter. Shares of MSFT are up with the rest of tech. Upcoming catalysts include any entrance in the tablet market; Windows Phone 7 adoption with new partner Nokia; strides against current market leaders in cloud computing; gaining search market share with Bing / Yahoo! partnership (see below); and continued momentum of Kinect. The stock currently trades at 8x Enterprise Value / TTM Free Cash Flow, inexpensive compared to historical trading multiples.Microsoft Rockets From Seventh To Second In Online Video (comScore)
Microsoft’s solidifying its place as runner-up, coming in behind YouTube as the Internet’s number two provider of streaming video, with 48 million unique viewers in February, according to comScore. Microsoft went from number seven to number two in just one month, bumping Yahoo. What’s driving the sudden increase? Bing search traffic has been steadily increasing every month, and while no new video products were launched, more search users are apparently using Bing Video. Microsoft said that the gains were in large part to a deal with Fox Sports to display Super Bowl ads.

ARM Working On Chip Architecture With Microsoft (Digitimes)
Following on the announcement in January that Microsoft is working on a version of its desktop Windows operating system that will run on chips that use ARM Holdings technology, Digitimes says that the company is “been cooperating with Microsoft to develop processor architectures.” Hard to really know if this is anything at all of note. Microsoft has been an architecture licensee of ARM’s chip designs in past, and so without any more detail, this sounds like it could just be the normal course of business.

Microsoft Puts A Hardware Guy In Charge Of TV (Business Insider)
Microsoft has put a hardware veteran, Tom Gibbons, in charge of its interactive TV business, suggesting that the company is working on an answer to Google TV and Apple TV. Microsoft has been rumoured to be working on some sort of new TV or video service since last fall. With Gibbons now leading the charge, the company is probably trying to find hardware partners to build boxes to run the service, just like it did with Windows Phone 7.

Daily Trader: Microsoft Is A Deep Value Stock To Consider (Seeking Alpha)
Microsoft is trading at 10.4x the $2.55 a share it is predicted to earn this year. Additionally, Microsoft has a huge cash hoard, which makes the stock an even better value. The company has a cash balance of about $41 billion, which gives you approximately a $5 discount on the share price. Microsoft’s shares offer a safe return for investors who have a long term outlook.
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