How did Microsoft Become as Valuable as Apple?

Microsoft and Apple are now worth nearly the same. A few years ago such a development would have been unthinkable. On Thursday, The New York Times had an interesting piece of analysis by Steve Lohr on how this happened. He said that Microsoft has “built on its strengths,” won its big bet on the cloud and was brave enough to walk away from bets it was losing (such as making smartphones). Mr. Lohr also notes that under CEO Satya Nadella “Microsoft has loosened up” and made its technology and culture more open.
Microsoft has become a case study of how a once-dominant company can build on its strengths and avoid being a prisoner of its past. It has fully embraced cloud computing, abandoned an errant foray into smartphones and returned to its roots as mainly a supplier of technology to business customers.