Portfolio Manager Explains Why Microsoft is Today's Amazon

Amazon's AMZN days as a cloud computing leader could be numbered. Cole Wilcox, the Portfolio Manager, CEO and CIO of Longboard Asset Management thinks that investors should turn their attention to Microsoft MSFT instead. "I think what people have wrong right now is Microsoft," Wilcox told Benzinga. "I think Microsoft is in the emergence of probably one of the most entrepreneurial companies in the tech space." Wilcox said that the things that Microsoft is doing in the cloud computing space will "without a doubt" turn the company into "today's Amazon." "I believe as we go forward over the course of the next five years, Microsoft is actually going to become the dominant cloud computing infrastructure as a service platform, as they are moving away from understanding the death of the operating system at the PC level," he said. "Microsoft still owns and dominates global business enterprise solutions and software, and really they're the incumbent player in this space. IT managers from around the world are comfortable with Microsoft and Microsoft products." Wilcox referred to Microsoft's cloud computing and infrastructure as a service platform as the "fastest-growing on the planet." "And it's coming from a company that has massive resources and a renewed energy and entrepreneurial spirit, because they have gotten kind of [beaten] up on a number of different things that they had," said Wilcox. "It's a little bit of the angry tiger aspect, and I think they're gonna surprise the world about how successful they [will be]." On the flip side of that, Wilcox warns that there will be a lot of losers in this space. "Companies that are in the way of Microsoft, like VMware VMW, as an example, I do not envy those guys that Microsoft has in their sights," said Wilcox. "In the past when Microsoft has had a target to go after with a clear vision and a clear execution strategy, they've been incredibly successful at doing those things. That is still their company and what they are today despite the failures of consumer devices. That's not their wheelhouse. What is their wheelhouse though is business enterprise solutions." Wilcox also praised Microsoft's cloud strategy for reducing piracy. "For Microsoft themselves it eliminates the issue of lost revenue from counterfeiting," said Wilcox.