Link: Microsoft Is Worth as Much as Apple. How Did That Happen?

Dec 1, 2018

Steve Lohr, writing for The New York Times, tries to explain what are the reasons behind Microsoft recent rising to become as valuable as Apple

But the more enduring and important answer is that Microsoft has become a case study of how a once-dominant company can build on its strengths and avoid being a prisoner of its past. It has fully embraced cloud computing, abandoned an errant foray into smartphones and returned to its roots as mainly a supplier of technology to business customers. […]

Mr. Nadella made the cloud service a top priority, and the company is now a strong No. 2 to Amazon.

“The essence of what Satya Nadella did was the dramatic shift to the cloud,” said David B. Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School. “He put Microsoft back into a high-growth business.”

It is the perception that Microsoft is on a high-growth track that has fueled its rising share price.

I admire how Nadella was able not to stick with the past and make bets on the future, also by cutting away poor decisions like the one of buying Nokia.
I would list one more reason why the stock has rised so much recently: China import bans, if confirmed, are going to heavily impact hardware producers, like Apple, but shouldn't matter much to web centered companies like today's Microsoft.

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