What's Going On With Microsoft Stock Thursday?

Microsoft Corp's MSFT stock is trading lower amid reports of its plans to put LinkedIn's data center technology to Azure on hold. 

The move starkly contrasts the company's initial strategy, which it announced in 2019. This development comes three years after Microsoft acquired LinkedIn for $27 billion, representing a notable reversal for both companies. 

LinkedIn had been using Azure for specific functions but had announced the broader "Blueshift" project to integrate fully into Azure, CNBC reports.

The decision to pause the Azure migration is a setback for Microsoft, which is actively competing with Amazon.Com Inc AMZN Amazon Web Services in the cloud infrastructure market. 

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who previously led the cloud division, has emphasized cloud technology and services as crucial growth areas for the company.

Also Read: Microsoft President Makes Startling Revelations on Arrival of Advanced AI

LinkedIn's Vice President of Engineering, Mohak Shroff, had expressed optimism about the Azure move in a 2019 blog post, citing the advantages of hardware and software innovations and global scale. 

However, internal communications later revealed that the company paused the project to reallocate resources to external Azure customers amid high demand.

A LinkedIn spokesperson confirmed the change in direction, emphasizing that LinkedIn continues to use Azure to complement its infrastructure needs and is also investing in its data centers. 

This includes running numerous employee-facing applications on Azure and using Azure Front Door for content delivery.

The pause in the Azure migration was partly due to challenges adapting LinkedIn's software tools for Azure. LinkedIn is now expanding its data center capacity to meet its computing needs. 

Under Nadella's leadership, Microsoft has successfully moved other acquisitions, such as GitHub and Mojang, to Azure. 

Azure's significance has also increased with Microsoft's investment in OpenAI, which relies on Azure for its advanced large language models like ChatGPT. 

Despite the pause in the LinkedIn migration, Azure continues to grow, with a 29% increase in revenue from Azure and other cloud services in the third quarter. In comparison, LinkedIn's revenue grew by 8%.

Microsoft stock has gained over 54% year-to-date.

Also Read: Microsoft, Google, And Adobe Navigate AI's Profitability Challenge

Price Action: MSFT shares traded lower by 1.55% at $368.55 on the last check Thursday.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.