Microsoft Corp and business software group SAP announced on Monday a three-year collaboration aimed to help SAP’s large enterprise clients relocate their business processes into the cloud.
Microsoft shares closed higher for the fifth time in the past eleven trading sessions on NASDAQ on Monday. The stock went up 0.74% ($1.02) to $138.43, after touching an intraday high at $138.50 and an intraday low at $137.02.
Shares of Microsoft Corporation have surged 36.29% so far in 2019 compared with a 19.94% gain for the benchmark index, S&P 500 (SPX).
In 2018, Microsoft’s stock went up 18.74%, thus, it again outperformed the S&P 500, which registered a 6.24% loss.
The collaboration addresses customer complaints that shifting from SAP’s traditional on-premise model to remotely hosted services turns out to be quite difficult.
The so called project “Embrace” is to allow corporate clients to run operations, hosted at remote servers that are supported by SAP’s S/4HANA database.
“This partnership is all about reducing complexity and minimizing costs for customers as they move to SAP S/4HANA in the cloud,” Jennifer Morgan, co-chief executive officer of SAP, said in a statement.
“Bringing together the power of SAP and Microsoft provides customers with the assurance of working with two industry leaders so they can confidently and efficiently transition into intelligent enterprises,” Morgan added.
“SAP’s decision to select Microsoft Azure as its preferred partner deepens the relationship between our two companies in a differentiated way and signals a shared commitment to fostering the growth of the cloud ecosystem,” Judson Althoff, executive vice president, Worldwide Commercial Business, Microsoft, said in a statement.
“Today’s news also reflects our commitment to a customer-first mindset and supporting their cloud transformation, which continues to drive how we at Microsoft approach everything from partnerships to product innovation. It takes co-selling to a whole new level,” Althoff said.
Analyst stock price forecast and recommendation
According to CNN Money, the 28 analysts, offering 12-month forecasts regarding Microsoft Corp’s stock price, have a median target of $160.00, with a high estimate of $170.00 and a low estimate of $151.00. The median estimate represents a 15.58% upside compared to the closing price of $138.43 on October 21st.
The same media also reported that at least 27 out of 32 surveyed investment analysts had rated Microsoft Corp’s stock as “Buy”, while 2 – as “Hold”.
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