微軟云能追上亞馬遜云嗎？

本周一上午，一篇態度樂觀的研究報告提振了微軟的股價，多方終于看到一點反彈跡象。過去幾周，微軟股價跌得有點慘。

美銀美林在報告中重申了微軟的“買入”評級和65美元的目標價。股市分析評論網站24/7wallst.com基于該報告指出，過去一年左右，微軟的股價一直在55美元上下波動，65美元的目標價意味著“巨大的上升空間”。

周一微軟開盤報50美元，一度升至50.75美元，收于50.61美元。雖然離65美元還有差距，但這或許是重拾升勢的第一步。

美林還認為，不用擔心Windows Server操作系統收入增速下降。上周的業績發布會結束后，其他觀察人士曾表示擔心此項收入增速變慢。美林的報告把重點放在微軟“智能云”收入和毛利潤的增長潛力上。

智能云業務是把客戶服務器上運行的軟件集中起來的業務，包括Windows Server操作系統以及微軟的Azure公共云業務。Azure匯聚了大量服務器、存儲和網絡設備，供客戶按需租用并繳納租金。負責運行Azure的是微軟設在全球各地的自營數據中心。

A rosy research note helped boost Microsoft shares Monday morning, signaling what bulls hope will be a resurgence in the stock which, over the past few weeks, has hit a bit of a swoon.

The note from Bank of America’s BAC 1.44% Merrill Lynch unit, reasserted its buy rating on Microsoft MSFT 1.48% stock with a $65 per share price target. Since Microsoft has been trading in the mid-$50 range for the past year or so, that $65 figure implies a “significant upside” to the share price, according to a 24/7 Wall St. report based on the research note.

Microsoft shares opened at $50 Monday and hit $50.75 before closing at $50.61. It’s not $65, but it may be a start in that direction.

Merrill Lynch also downplayed slower Windows Server revenue growth, which worried other Microsoft watchers after last week’s earnings call. Instead, the company’s report focused on what it sees as possibly stronger revenue and gross profit in Microsoft’s overall “Intelligent Cloud” business.

The Intelligent Cloud category lumps together software that runs on customers’ own servers, including the Windows Server operating system along with Microsoft’s Azure public cloud business. Azure aggregates a ton of computer servers, storage, and networking that customers can rent and pay for as needed. Microsoft Azure runs in Microsoft owned-and-operated data centers around the world.

上周微軟宣布，第三財季其智能云業務實現利潤21.9億美元，比上年同期下降14%，不少人都神經緊張起來，但顯然美林里鼓搗數字的人沒受影響，他們認為此項業務今后的收入和利潤增長很可能超過所有人的預期。

支持者還盼望微軟的Azure能追隨Amazon Web Services（AWS），也就是亞馬遜公共云業務的成長路線。上季度，AWS的利潤率良好，達到23.5%。然而就在一年前左右，大多數觀察人士還認為AWS是亞馬遜虧損最大的業務，而今AWS顯然已經是亞馬遜最賺錢的業務之一。

24/7wallst.com引述的美林報告內容如下：

Azure目前的毛利潤率降幅為10%-20%，許多投資者認為，可以肯定今后其利潤率改善還需要很久。然而，我們認為2017財年該業務的毛利潤率有望上升5%-10%，年底收入將增長16億美元，達到約41億美元。雖然看上去是很大提升，但我們發現AWS的收入規模達到46億美元時，營業利潤率約為14%。就微軟而言，由于前期已經投入大量資金（短短幾年就在全球22個地區落地），隨著規模不斷擴大，此項業務的優勢應該會進一步顯現。

Windows 10帶來的升級浪潮可能帶來今后一年微軟的另一個亮點。在上個月的微軟Build 2016大會上，微軟宣布Windows 10用戶已經超過2.7億?？赡芄浪銛底诌^于樂觀了點，但2015年7月上市的Windows 10的用戶數確實相當可觀。

無論怎樣，對亞馬遜來說，微軟已經成為公共云領域強有力的第二大企業（雖然差距仍很大）。同時，“搖錢樹”軟件Windows和Office仍在為微軟創造大量現金。舉例來說，Office等軟件所在的微軟企業部門上季度銷售額同比雖略有下降，仍實現收入63億美元。Windows業務部門銷售額減少了17%，收入仍有94億美元。

這些數字決不可小覷。（財富中文網）

譯者：Charlie

審校：夏林

The fact that Intelligent Cloud profit dropped 14% to $2.19 billion for the third quarter compared to the year-ago period spooked some last week, but apparently didn’t faze Merrill Lynch number crunchers who think revenue and profit growth for that category may well accelerate faster than anyone anticipates going forward.

Microsoft boosters also hope that Azure follows the trajectory of Amazon Web Services, Amazon.com’s AMZN 3.70% public cloud business. AWS posted a healthy profit margin of 23.5% for its most recent quarter. Up until the last year or so, most observers considered AWS a loss-leader for its parent company. Now AWS appears to be one of the company’s most profitable businesses.

From the Merrill report, as quoted in 24/7 Wall St.:

With Azure currently at a -10 to -20% incremental gross margin many investors see it as a foregone conclusion that margin improvement will likely be much farther out in the future. However, we believe that incremental gross margins could reach +5 to +10% in fiscal 2017 with an incremental $1.6 billion in revenue to roughly $4.1 billion ending fiscal 2017. While this seems like a large improvement, we note that AWS segment operating margins were roughly 14% when it was at $4.6 billion in size, and in Microsoft’s case, it has frontloaded a significant amount of investment (reaching 22 availability zones worldwide in just a few years) and should be able to achieve significant leverage as the service continues to scale off.

Another bright spot for Microsoft in the upcoming year could come from the Windows 10 upgrade wave. At its Build conference last month, Microsoft claimed that more than 270 million Windows 10 users. Even if that is an overly optimistic estimate, that’s probably still a ton of users for a product that first surfaced in July, 2015.

In any case, Microsoft has established itself as a strong (although still distant) number two player to Amazon in public cloud computing. But it also still makes crazy money off its Windows-and-Office cash cows. As an example, the Microsoft business unit that includes Office saw its sales down slightly year over year but still logged $6.3 billion in revenue in the most recent quarter. Similarly, the Windows unit saw sales off 17% but still ended up with $9.4 billion.

These are not numbers to sneeze at.