Microsoft Teardown

We dive into the strategies Microsoft is pursuing across cloud, enterprise IT, AI, gaming, and more to see how the company is positioning itself for the future. As the world's most valuable company, and with a current market cap hovering around $780B, Microsoft may be the next company to reach the $1T threshold. While it may not grab as many headlines as its buzzier tech giant counterparts, the company is quietly adapting across its core business areas, led by a future-focused Satya Nadella. Since assuming the CEO role in 2014, Nadella has deprioritized the Windows offering that initially helped Microsoft become a household name, refocusing the company's efforts on implementing AI across all its products and services. That's not the only change: in addition to an increased focus on AI, cloud and subscription services have become unifying themes across products. And to maintain its dominance in enterprise technology, Microsoft is expanding in new areas -- like gaming and personal computing -- that leverage the company's own cloud infrastructure. Below, we outline Microsoft's key priorities, initiatives, investments, and acquisitions across its various business segments. The majority of Microsoft's revenue comes from its enterprise technologies, which fall under its Intelligent Cloud and Productivity & Business Processes segments. The Productivity & Business Processes segment includes software products like Office 365, Skype, LinkedIn, and Microsoft's ERP (enterprise resource planning) and CRM (customer relationship management) platform, Dynamic 365. Microsoft's Intelligence Cloud segment includes cloud platform Azure, the Visual Studio developer platform, and Windows Server, a version of Microsoft's proprietary operating system optimized for running in the cloud. Outside of enterprise technology, Microsoft generates revenue from products like Xbox and Microsoft Surface, among others areas. These products are bucketed into the company's More Personal Computing segment. In addition to its in-house efforts, Microsoft has a number of initiatives that look to support promising young businesses. These include Microsoft's venture capital arm, M12, Microsoft's accelerator, ScaleUp, and other initiatives like Microsoft for Startups.