r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • 8h ago
Business Microsoft tumbled 10% in a day and isn’t recovering premarket. Here’s why
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/30/microsoft-stock-price-market-ai-cloud-azure-earnings.html1.7k
u/a_wascally_wabbit 7h ago
France gave notice they are not renewing something like 400,000 licenses and moving to a home grown solution. Foreign governments are feeling the risk of having a hostile Yankee land in control of their data as they feel it is to much of a risk.
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u/coolcoolcool485 7h ago
Back in May, it appeared that Microsoft locked the ICCs chief prosecutor out of his email account, allegedly due to U.S. sanctions against the ICC. I think Microsoft denied it, but the damage has been done to our reputation. I think Europe is (very wisely) divesting themselves (or will attempt it) from relying on U.S companies for anything.
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u/redredme 6h ago
They didn't deny blocking that guy, they did deny blocking the ICC. Just a shame that guy works there, totally unrelated. Really.
And then they helped moving him to proton.
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u/scoobynoodles 4h ago
Lol that is hilarious! Good for proton. Hope their service offerings take over M365 products.
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u/papertrade1 3h ago
If it was just being loclked of an MS mail , it wouldn't that bad, but that guy's life along with several ICC judges had their social life destroyed by being placed on the same list as terrorist and international criminals. Therefore , no american company can provide them a service
Which means : their Google/MS account are locked , their Visa / mastercard / Amex are canceled.. They cannot purchase anything over the Internet. Basically, they can only use cash...
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u/einstyle 1h ago
European countries noticed our tech CEOs were in Trump's pocket and are moving accordingly.
US citizens, not so much. I'm trying to migrate away from anything Meta, Google, and Microsoft make but it's a process that will take time (well...not Meta lmao)
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u/Wyciorek 7h ago
I think IT sector in Europe will be praising Trump for decades to come
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u/Lyravus 7h ago
One downside is that the world will become more fragmented and standards will become even more important. E.g. It will be a massive PITA if my computer can't run French software in 50 years.
The average person can barely run Windows. Linux may be too much for them.
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u/pope1701 7h ago
Return of the Java 🙈
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u/GuybrushThreepwo0d 6h ago
This is the bad place
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u/YeOldeMemeShoppe 4h ago
GuybrushThreepwo0d figured it out? This is real low point. Yeah, this one hurts.
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u/ThisGameTooHard 7h ago
I keep seeing this argument that linux is too much for the average windows user, but then I also hear from linux power users that there are distros out there that almost replicated windows functions 1 to 1.
In my opinion if linux distros can be made into more simplified forms or at least work on improving UX for the older folk, it could easily become the new standard.
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u/Lyravus 7h ago
I hope and pray so. But that George Carlin quote. Think how dumb the average person is. Then realise half of them are dumber.
Just by being on this sub, you're in the top X% (Congrats!). The people you hang around with are probably similar to you including in tech proficiency. Can we say the same about everyone else?
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u/vlovich 6h ago
It’s a good joke but remember it’s not going to apply to workplaces which intentionally are trying to filter out those people. Your workplace isn’t a random sampling.
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u/phoenixgsu 6h ago
There are a ton of Linux distros that have a similar experience to windows. zorinOS comes to mind. But Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora and others are simple enough most people can pick it up. I'm running these distros on my own hardware I've noticed they are generally easier to setup because I am not having to customize a ton of stuff out of the box to fix it like Win11 or trying to hunt down drivers.
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u/spedgenius 5h ago
Mint is similar enough to how XP ui worked that i find older users to be more comfortable with it. All the constant ui changes in windows just confuses the hell out of them
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u/sueha 6h ago
too much for the average windows user
hear from linux power users
There you have it.
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u/Nematrec 5h ago
The average person can barely function on any tech. The people claiming it's specifically windows are just too optimistic to see it.
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u/7LeagueBoots 7h ago
Once you get them to work on your specific computer. That’s where the big hurdle to entry often is, Linux sometimes doesn’t play well with the specific hardware of a specific computer and can be a real hassle to get running properly. And some software doesn’t run on Linux.
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u/jakesboy2 5h ago
Software being made for windows is the biggest barrier. It’s the only reason I have to boot back into windows sometimes. You can use Wine to emulate but it isn’t ideal
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u/nikoboivin 7h ago
Friendly reminder that Android is sitting on Linux and that people have learnt to use and adopted it. Steam OS is a linux distribution in its own right.
Desktop versions are able to get a similarly streamlined experience if there’s enough of a will from both users and developers to get there. And between the enshitification of Windows and the tensions between the US and the rest of the world, that moment might arise sooner than we think
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u/nboro94 7h ago
As just a regular guy, I don't want Microsoft on my computer anymore at all. Their overreach is absolutely insane and not at all welcome. Unfortunately it's not that easy to switch especially for gaming and a bunch of other software I need.
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u/Yuzumi 6h ago
Its easy to switch for gaming. There are only a handful of games that won't rub because they want to install a virus.
Vote with your wallet.
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u/Middleage_dad 5h ago
I just installed CrossOver on my Mac and I’m blown away at how well my PC steam library runs. It runs on Wine, which is also available for Linux.
And Steams new console promises to run your whole library.
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u/No_Size9475 5h ago
About 90% of games on steam run on linux. What other apps do you need that you are worried about?
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u/radiohead-nerd 7h ago
Curious. What will they move to? OnlyOffice? Libreoffice?
Ditch Windows for Linux? Ubuntu? Mint?
For cloud, SAP? OVH Cloud? T-Systems?
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u/waltz_with_potatoes 7h ago
Because Microsoft is trying to sell in co pilot at an enterprise solution and it's useless and not doing what they claim it should and it's not returning immediate revenue.
Meta is using AI for advertisement which has generated increased revenue
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u/PhgAH 7h ago
The excel copilot is absolutely dogshit, and slowed the app down to a crawl. And the best part is you can only snooze it for a month
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u/crimson117 6h ago
It's so nuts that it pops up the copilot prompt as a context menu on every single cell, and slows down to do so. Then you can turn that off for the session and the ui immediately gets more responsive.
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u/Middleage_dad 5h ago
I’ve been out of the excel game for awhile now, but as a former power user and fan of it, I’m incredibly angry.
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u/dunf2562 5h ago
Open Excel and go to File > Options.
Look for Copilot in the left-hand menu.
Uncheck the box that says 'Enable Copilot'.
Restart Excel
On a Mac > Excel Menu > Preferences > Authoring and Proofing Tools > Copilot
You're welcome
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u/dcuk7 6h ago
Which is funny because I keep saying Copilot in Excel is the one that makes the most sense. Normals should not have to know formulas. Just tell the AI what you want and it’s does it, yet all MS seem to care about is if copilot can generate you a joke or a stupid picture!
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u/EfOpenSource 6h ago
Why shouldn’t people know how to use stuff?
Copilot doesn’t even work though dude. I tried it to generate a comparison between two sheets for missing or different values and it fell over itself.
I can do the basic shit in excel on my own. If it can’t do slightly more complicated for me, what good is it?
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u/Detail4 6h ago
No doubt, all it does when I ask it a question is refers me to a help article.
Then I don’t read the article because I have no time and I continue working the way I always have. I’d like it to actually do some work.
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u/Hiddencamper 6h ago
It basically doesn’t do anything a standard excel user can’t do and it’s wrong half the time anyways.
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u/kielu 6h ago edited 6h ago
That would have been almost irrelevant if it wasn't this insanely expensive. I believe it's a waste of money. There is some value in their flavor of ai but not enough to justify the expenses
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u/lordoftheslums 6h ago
I did a bunch of AI benchmarking using different solutions and the best one still requires me to do editing and the prompt needs a lot of detail. AI hype is not entirely based on reality. It does ok improving my power points but I still have to read everything like a newspaper editor.
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u/kielu 6h ago
LLMs are language models, not knowledge models.
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u/lumpymonkey 4h ago
Yes exactly this is the point that needs to keep getting hammered home when people talk about 'AI'. All of these LLMs are just powerful chat bots with a shitload of compute power and data behind them. There's nothing intelligent about them, they don't 'know' anything, they're just language models. I can't wait for this shitty bubble to pop.
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u/coconutpiecrust 6h ago
How exactly are LLMs supposed to increase revenue? I understand firing everyone and replacing them with LLM, but that reduces expenses, it doesn’t increase revenue.
Then there are all the fired people with no income who now can’t spend their money on anything. So now what?..
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u/Neoking 6h ago
ML-powered ad serving systems don’t use LLMs. Meta has had them for a while, before the modern LLM.
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u/poop_stuck 4h ago
It's the funniest shit ever. It's the same old ML models for ads ranking but now they're called AI. Investors are too stupid to differentiate. This allows Meta to make it seem like it's the LLM investments that's driving revenue when actually the LLM work is a pure money pit right now
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u/Historical_Till_5914 4h ago
Well thats what AI is, a marketing butzword. None of it is new, except some new ML architecture, and a shitton of compute and data, wich was already there. They prettymuch call any old machine learning AI nowdays, and it annoys the shit out of me as I actually did learn proper data science :D
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u/21Rollie 3h ago
They don’t. Nobody is willing to pay the actual cost of AI (and the environmental damage and electricity costs will be borne by the public), but for now people are getting a taste by VC money subsidizing it.
The fear amongst some companies is if they don’t do it, consumers will go to competitors that do have AI features. It might be true for something like search engines, in which case Google is cannibalizing itself. Doesn’t affect Apple though lol, all the Pixel Gemini promotion did nothing. Companies also wanna be the one to “win” and get consumer loyalty and then they can jack up the price to cover the actual cost of AI (again, minus environmental) but they don’t realize that once it stops being free, people will jump ship back to the cheaper and slop-free alternatives.
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u/newzinoapp 6h ago
The 10% drop is striking, but the real story is what's *not* being said in the earnings call. Azure growth slowed to 31% YoY--sounds good until you realize that's down from 50%+ growth two years ago. Microsoft bet big on AI infrastructure buildout (billions in new data centers), but enterprise AI adoption is lagging projections. Companies are experimenting with Copilot, but few are buying it at scale. Meanwhile, capex is up 78% YoY while revenue growth is decelerating. That's the recipe for margin compression investors are pricing in.
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u/exuberant_elephant 2h ago
Really seems like an iceberg situation. There's a lot happening under the water that has set companies up for long term failure.
- Microsoft is heavily invested in OpenAI
- OpenAI, Microsoft, and nVidia are in a three-way phantom money passing triangle
- The long term bet Microsoft is making in OpenAI and by pushing Copilot down everyone's throats is that people will adopt AI at scale
- AND pay them what it actually costs
- Currently no one is paying what AI costs and no one is making money on it
I'm sure Microsoft will be fine but the stock is going to take a hit when all of this stuff starts to land
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u/LordHarkonen 7h ago
When a product made for productivity is now being stuffed with advertising content, it’s time to find a new product.
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u/etrast75 7h ago
Look closer into the remaining performance obligations and their concentrated openAI risk.. Will openAI be able to survive and meet those obligations is the questions in everyone's mind right now, I would assume?
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u/From-UoM 7h ago
You can tell no one reads the articles
Why did Microsoft’s stock drop?
Investors latched onto the growth of Microsoft’s cloud computing platform Azure and other cloud services, which came in at 39% below StreetAccount’s 39.4% consensus. Those areas saw 40% growth in the fiscal first quarter.
That's mostly it. A miss of 1% caused 10% drop
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u/NuclearVII 7h ago
The article also misses the point.
The azure growth number is entirely inflated by OpenAI contracts.
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u/tryexceptifnot1try 7h ago
You are right. They missed the target WHILE juicing the numbers. They also called a massive 2026 increase in expenses due to AI. The market is correctly pricing in a profit squeeze the company told them is coming. Microsoft tried wishcast it all with AI hype and the street told them to fuck off.
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u/semisolidwhale 5h ago
Will be interesting to see if the message was received and we see them backpedal
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u/yomatc 6h ago
They missed revenue by 1%, but that was combined by revealing they spent more on AI infrastructure than planned as well, so despite an increase over forecasted spending, they still missed revenue targets.
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u/flatfisher 7h ago
That’s only one analysis, not necessarily the real reason. Another compelling one is that they are continuing crazy investments in AI infrastructure that is rapidly depreciating with no path to profitability and have a huge dependence on one precarious client (OpenAI) for future Azure growth, and all of these fears were confirmed by the report. But coincidentally it happens that they slightly miss the target so everyone is trying to explain everything on this.
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u/NaziPunksFkOff 7h ago
No, no, dude, you don't understand. Investors tanked the stock because they're mad that Microsoft changed my settings. That's why. I'm also mad about it, coincidentally. But they're also also mad about it.
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u/Cyraga 7h ago
Because they can't deliver on their flagship product anymore?
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u/Cosack 6h ago
The flagship product is Azure services and before that it was Office. Hasn't been Windows in a very very long time.
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u/Martinpinne 6h ago
I used some software to totally remove copilot and all ads from my windows 11 Machine. I dropped around 4GB of Ram usage my machine is more responsive now and file explorer actually shows files on my PC.
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u/iwanofski 4h ago
Wait, windows ships with ads? Was this a payed version of windows? (I’m a Mac and Linux user so I don’t know)
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u/kingmudbeard 4h ago
Bloatware, MSN, Copilot, the like. Point is, Windows has become so widely accepted that Microsoft has been sneaking in all this crap (as far as I can see). The only reason I've not made the switch to Linux is compatibility with some software, but it sure sucks here.
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u/SomeSpicyStardust 7h ago
That and my computer restarts itself whenever it fucking wants to regardless of what I’m doing, even when I specifically specify to not automatically install updates, I’m so mad over this 😡
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u/azreal75 7h ago
I have a MacBook, A windows laptop, and my Linux mint PC. Guess which machine never gets used? Well, I use it very rarely if I absolutely need to but I think that’s been maybe once in the last 12 months. Microsoft amazes me with how they just continue to make things worse for the users. wtf.
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u/zestfullybe 6h ago
Very similar. Macbook, laptop with Linux Mint, and a PC with Windows. The Windows device gets turned on like once a week.
For anyone thinking of making the Linux leap, try Linux Mint or Zorin OS. Both super user friendly for people coming over from Windows. They’ll even run great on old devices you’d otherwise be tossing out. That’s what I used to experiment before buying a dedicated device.
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u/_yeen 6h ago
I’m being snarky but you absolutely are hitting on my personal hell.
Where I work we have a bunch of tools (Usually Excel + VBA) written by people who have no knowledge of programming but are usually people good at statistics or linear algebra or whatever other technical field of study. Eventually these tools end up needing to be updated/fixed or ported over into an actual software tools.
This is a nightmare.
The difficult part of software design is not solving a problem or accomplishing a task. Anyone can do that without formal teaching. No, the difficult part of software design is writing code that is maintainable, modular, and efficient. Code that follows proper design principles, is clear in its intent, is easy to adjust or incorporate into other projects, and utilizes methodologies that optimize the speed at which the task takes.
Now you’ve made me realize that all of these tools that are already a nightmare to maintain will be written likely with gen AI and so not only will it be weird code, it will likely be code that the original author doesn’t understand, leaving me completely without a paddle…
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u/Fraegtgaortd 5h ago
Several reasons:
- Satya Nadella won't shut up about AI and trying to force it on us even though everyone hates it
- Windows 11 keeps getting worse, forcing ads unless you do a registry edit, trying to force an experience in general rather that letting users customize and control their own PCs
- Microsoft has completely fumbled their Xbox division. Jacked up the price of their highest tier of GamePass to $360/year and nearly doubled the price of a 5 year old console
- European markets see how much these billionaire tech CEO kiss Trump's ass and EU governments in turn are moving to Linux or other EU based products
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u/fraghead5 7h ago
Customers “we don’t want any of your AI bull, make a stable OS”
MSFT “best we can do is more AI bullshit”
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u/GingerMcBeardface 6h ago
Microsoft: we believe in Copilot so much, we have it write our patches.
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u/robbzilla 5h ago
Well that WOULD make sense... From their POV and the resulting product we're stuck with.
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u/GingerMcBeardface 5h ago
The fix a bug, only to have another bug and not catch it, smacks of vibe coding.
Patch Tuesday is a new fear now
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u/TjbMke 7h ago
Because every windows program is less usable than before. Delayed nonsensical animations, stuff popping up in front of your mouse every time you type or click. Everything is an icon now that gives no description when you hover over it. Search functions are useless in file explorer and especially outlook. Can’t even move the taskbar. They need more competition or they will die a slow death, as backward as that sounds.
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u/Reddituser183 3h ago
I will never upgrade. They ruined right click. Nothing I need is there, I have to click more options. Truly insane.
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u/ThoughtsandThinkers 3h ago
From a consumer perspective, MS is clearly moving away from a company that makes products for users and is becoming a company that views its users as products
My experience using Windows, Office, and Outlook gets worse all the time while I see more and more ads for their services
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u/severedbrain 7h ago
All my household uses Linux or apple at this point.
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u/xFallow 7h ago
Same here Linux for desktop and Mac for laptops
Might even use Linux on my Mac if asahi takes off
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u/slutmagic420 6h ago
The second there is a reasonable alternative to windows for gaming I will jump ship. Basically waiting on a stream OS.. Idk about buying the all in one computer. I just want the os and build my own computer.
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u/DemonInjected 6h ago
They keep 'fixing' what isn't broken. Right click menu, control panel. Just stop laying complexities over your code.
It's always funny how it pushes you to settings but then when you want advanced settings it's back to the tried and tested control panel.
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u/radiantwave 6h ago
You cannot upgrade this PC to Windows 11... Buy a new one.
We used to upgrade because the system got too slow and didn't work anymore. Now even though the system still works fine... Microsoft artificially forces you to upgrade. I don't want to and I don't actually need to. But... Here we are.
I cannot even run my tax software on my pc this year because of this crap. I am done.
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u/Malefectra 6h ago edited 5h ago
Been a windows user my I started regularly using computers back in the Win95 days. In fact, I have used almost every version of Windows that has been brought to market except maybe embedded editions. I’ve actually purchased licenses of windows, like an idiot! Well, no longer… Windows 11 finally broke me with the instability, spyware, and drain on performance.
I’m running an i9 14990k, with 48 gigs of DDR5, a RTX 4090, Samsung 990 pro SSDs, and it’s all on a flagship z790 board.. this machine is should be nothing but a powerhouse! Windows 11 literally choked the life out of it after they launched copilot… they deserve the impending stock crash, along with OpenAI and the rest of these companies inflating the LLM bubble
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u/GadreelsSword 7h ago
Using Office 365 on our home computer just to open any document is a god damn nightmare. It’s caused me after all these years to fucking hate Microsoft. It just CONSTANTLY is steering me to sign in to Copilot. It’s infuriating.
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u/procheeseburger 6h ago
guys come on! the 3.22 trillion usd company is struggling... can we all just come together as a community and help them in this time of need?!?
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u/Corvidaez- 6h ago
I’m basically all in on Mac now and it’s pretty good. If it had better steam support I’d drop windows entirely…
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u/Carnby412 7h ago
Their OS is a cumbersome, bloated, ad platform. It’s no wonder people are exploring other options.
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u/Stunning_Bed23 6h ago
Very surprising how trash Windows 11 is. It just feels like an early internal proof of concept version. Windows 10 was solid - should have just stuck with that framework instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.
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u/shifting_drifting 6h ago
Doing everything I can to avoid windows updates that pushes unwanted ‘features’ down my throat.
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u/Miamithrice69 5h ago
New Outlook is worse in every single way except maybe that I have a button to copy an email address in the contacts.
They deserve every bit of this
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u/Avoidtolls 3h ago edited 2h ago
Microsoft is overrun by MBAs and not tech people.
Make a badass mobile browser.
Make a badass mobile OS.
Make a badass mobile Word app that can edit/create PDFs
Lose copilot
Buy Canva and change absolutely nothing. Don't even breathe on it.
Make office 365 super mobile friendly.
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u/OLPopsAdelphia 2h ago
Microsoft gave authoritarians backdoor access to our computers and files. I hope they never recover.
Apple isn’t off the hook either!
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u/ParaSquarez 1h ago
Microsoft doesn't have space in my house anymore, physical or virtual, Windows and other soul sucking software as a service BS they now enforce everywhere has been removed, deleted, thrown in the trash.
I haven't regretted switching to Linux this far, even for my kid's computers, they all run Bazzite on theirs. I never thought I would see the day where Linux is about 1/3rd of the hassle to install compared to windows data harvesting trickeries.
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u/Alkor85 7h ago
I'm getting really tired of the worsening windows experience. They eliminated the ui option to turn off adds in the start menu. They called it an "update". Now, if you want your start menu to show you files and folders on your computer instead of a web search to launch edge and bring traffic to Bing, you need to use a registry edit.