Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) shares are still declining days after what investors apparently thought was a disastrous earnings report. The stock fell as much as 2 percent during the regular trading day on Thursday, bringing the company’s stock price below $3. However, one firm estimates the company’s market cap should be $344.2 billion, suggesting a $41.25 per share price.
In a research note issued this week, the analysts took a closer look at Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s valuation and highlighted some essential parts of the company.
Untapped opportunities for Microsoft in Skype
They especially believe that Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) can capitalize on Skype more than it is doing right now. The software giant acquired Skype two years ago, and the analysts believe that Microsoft is missing an important opportunity here. They think Skype can be integrated more into Microsoft’s enterprise products to help strengthen them.
The analysts see Skype as the perfect way for Microsoft to bring voice and video sharing capabilities into Microsoft Office to help businesses improve the way they collaborate. They also believe that the company could leverage Skype’s large user base to promote its Bing search engine. And third, they see the company as benefiting greatly by integrating Skype into the Windows Phone 8 operating system.
It’s worth noting that Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is moving toward a more integrated structure through its reorganization efforts. They’re designed into bringing all of the experiences from various Microsoft products into one unit, so seeing some sort of Skype integration with Office wouldn’t be much of a stretch in the near future.
Valuing Microsoft through a sum of the parts
In their estimate, the analysts show Microsoft Office as holding 38.1 percent of the company’s value, Windows Server and SQL Server as holding 20.4 percent and Windows Operating System as holding 13.5 percent. The rest of the company’s value is split among Bing, MSN, and aQuantive, Xbox and Windows Phone, Skype and cash.
Concerns for Microsoft
Of course there are some major concerns Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is facing, like the threat posed by Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s productivity products and other open source software. And of course the company still faces headwinds in the tablet market, although Windows Phone 8 is starting to see traction and they see the partnership with Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V) as a positive.
