At the beginning of this year, players in the technology, video game, entertainment and even e-commerce industries are feeling the wrath of large groups. Prime Video, Twitch, Riot Games and even eBay among many others: these companies have just launched a real professional massacre, offering a terrible observation for 2024 less than a month after the new year. On January 25, Microsoft joined the movement by announcing the elimination of 1,900 positions in its video game division. Following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the various Xbox studios were not the only ones to be affected. Some employees have taken care to reveal the extent of the situation. By declaring on X (formerly Twitter) that entire teams have been broken on major licenses like Overwatch 2, and that a survival game project in development for six years has simply been abandoned, players (and developers) are far from holding the firm in high esteem.
However, this turnaround within the company is far from having affected stock market performance, quite the contrary. Against all expectations, Microsoft has managed to cross the symbolic threshold of 3,000 billion dollars on the stock market. This feat was previously reserved for Apple, which reached this goal last December. Thus, the Redmond firm enters the history of the American stock market the day after one of its biggest human scandals.
What can we learn from this situation?
À According to the analysis by The Verge, these record results have nothing to do with the departure of employees. While this event could have negatively affected the company's stock market performance, the announcement of the layoffs did not benefit Microsoft. This sudden surge is attributed to the company's innovations in terms of artificial intelligence. The firm has strengthened its repeatedly expressed its desire to integrate the technology into its existing tools. Last year, the group invested nearly $10 billion in OpenAI and the fruits of this partnership are beginning to be felt in the development of new updates and other new products.
Microsoft's dominant position is constantly being strengthened, a development that is also expressed on the stock market side. In January 2019, a share of the company was estimated at $107 but has now reached the sum of $404. Thanks to its broad acquisition portfolio developed over the years - Mojang, LinkedIn and Activision Blizzard to name a few – Microsoft has almost become to the tech world what Disney is to the movie industry. So where will this dizzying rise stop?
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