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Microsoft ( MSFT ) executives trumpeted machine learning, artificial intelligence and software bots at the start of the company’s Build developers conference on Wednesday in San Francisco. And investors liked what they heard. Microsoft shares were up 0.4% to above 55 in afternoon trading on the stock market today , approaching their all-time high of 56.85, reached on Dec. 29. “Microsoft’s Build conference was more exciting than we expected, with major announcements around machine learning, bots and AI,” Pacific Crest Securities analyst Brendan Barnicle said in a report Wednesday. “These products show Microsoft’s development focus is moving beyond the cloud to Conversations as a Platform.” Barnicle reiterated his overweight rating on Microsoft stock with a price target of 65. At Build, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella showcased improvements to the Cortana personal assistant software and announced previews of new cloud computing services and toolkits for machine learning and to create intelligent bots. “As an industry, we are on the cusp of a new frontier that pairs the power of natural human language with advanced machine intelligence,” Nadella said in a statement . “At Microsoft, we call this Conversations as a Platform, and it builds on and extends the power of the Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Windows platforms to empower developers everywhere.” With Conversations as a Platform, speech and text queries in natural language are the new user interface for computing devices, Nadella said. And intelligent software bots are the new apps, he said. RBC Capital Markets analyst Ross MacMillan said Microsoft’s announcements Wednesday were evolutionary. However, he reiterated his outperform rating on Microsoft stock and price target of 63. “Microsoft used its annual developer conference to highlight the evolution of Windows 10, new initiatives and the company’s long-term goal to develop to a new interaction platform based on natural language and machine learning,” MacMillan said in a report Wednesday. “We view (the) announcements as incremental.” Microsoft’s efforts to turn Cortana into a platform based on conversational natural language aligns with what Amazon.com ( AMZN ) is doing with Echo and what Apple ( AAPL ) is doing with Siri, he said. In a report Wednesday, Raymond James analyst Michael Turits maintained his strong buy rating on Microsoft stock. Scalper1 News
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