r/valueinvesting
微软真正的看空逻辑：
作者从 Azure、Office 365 和 Windows 三大业务拆解了微软的看空逻辑，强调了 AI 风险与竞争威胁。
- 作者认为微软是一只将继续增长的价值股。
- Azure 的增长严重依赖 OpenAI，且内部算力需求正在蚕食客户增长。
- AI 威胁着 Microsoft 365 稳定的按用户订阅模式，使其面临基于使用量的竞争。
- Windows 是一项衰退的业务，面临硬件限制、Mac 的竞争以及移动设备的替代。
说清楚一点，我认为微软会继续增长，我把它视为一只价值股。但我真的受够了每天看到十篇关于微软的帖子，其中大多数都包含错误信息。
我将通过分析他们三大核心业务来解释看空观点：
- Azure。增长确实不错，但有个前提：很可能是与OpenAI的资本支出紧密相关。另一个风险是，由于微软自身也需要算力，他们为了满足内部需求而牺牲了Azure的增长。这不仅在短期内损害了MSFT，也让客户感到不满。AWS没有这个问题。谷歌云也有类似问题，但价格更便宜。
总结：8/10的业务，但其增长高度依赖于OpenAI的成功。
- Microsoft 365 / Office。这个业务很棒，因为企业按用户、按月付费。这种稳定性正是企业特别青睐它的原因。这也是为什么Teams即使产品不如Slack，依然能胜出。问题是，AI可能颠覆这一模式。
如果每个人使用的算力差异很大，你可能需要引入按用量计费的定价模式。但问题在于，如果企业只支付边际使用成本，那么Anthropic和OpenAI（或其他公司）可以直接在这一领域与微软竞争。
总结：6/10的业务。如今是现金奶牛，但AI可能破坏这一商业模式。
- Windows。这一块简直糟糕透顶。内存正在压垮低端PC，Windows在高端市场难以与Mac竞争，质量也成问题。此外，平板和手机正在取代电脑需求，而微软在这些领域更是愈发无关紧要。
总结：1/10的业务。已不再是增长引擎。
这个社区里有人把现在的微软比作去年的谷歌。但我要指出的是，两者存在显著差异：搜索曾受到AI的威胁，这对他们的现金牛利润率构成真实挑战。谷歌通过打造顶尖模型（Gemini）来驱动搜索结果，并借助TPU投资成功化解危机。而微软没有自研AI模型，没有自研芯片让Azure比GC或AWS更便宜，也没有基于广告的大型消费级软件产品，能让AI直接提升利润率。
看看亚马逊过去五年的增长前景。没有任何定律规定微软不会遭遇同样的命运——缓慢而稳定的增长，堪比指数基金。
Sigh. Read point 2 again. A integrated stack yes, but the key lever there is their flat fee business model. AI usage directly upends that. How can a flat fee work when some will spend $100 on Claude for Excel and others zero?
And once you move away from flat fee, and to monetization by usage, suddenly the “moat” falls apart. Because in this world, quality matters much more. If enterprise needs to pay by usage, the most effective/efficient apps are now the cheapest. And that won’t always be a Microsoft app.
You’re assuming the average Office user will generate enough AI usage to break a flat-fee model. I don’t see that happening. Most enterprise users will only make a handful of AI requests per day, which is exactly the kind of workload SaaS pricing has always been able to absorb through cross-subsidization and tiered licensing. Even if that wouldn‘t be the case , they can implement usage limits.
Yeah, the bear case is that AI gets good enough that it breaks the flat fee model, which by the way has already started to break.
But if you think AI usage will remain mediocre in enterprise, then I guess we will agree to disagree.
If AI gets better companies will need less staff which means less licenses needed in theory.
Imo ai can cut 10-20% of crap. There's a lot of people preparing slide shows and other nonsense as a full time job which can be done in a fraction of the time with AI
Someone’s scared stock is going up and their puts won’t print. I see these articles all the time when a stock goes in one direction someone writes on how it should go the other. Look at the fundamentals and returns… very simple.
It's a screaming buy here sub 400
I have an overall bullish view. But few risks that I am watching are: 1) Azure revenue growth 2) CapEx as a percent of Operating Cash.
If Azure growth accelerates while CapEx begins to moderate, it would indicate AI infra investment is converting into a durable revenue for longterm. It would also mean that the recent FCF compression is temporary rather than structural.
Tired of Europe being against freedom , we need to give their citizens some democracy !
TBF, Microsoft popped 6% today. OpenAI's IPO delay might've had some affect but who knows. Today was also a big day for indices to re-balance so hard to tell what actually happened.
A simple AI search would invalidate half of these points. It’s an understatement to say that M365 and Windows are deeply ingrained in enterprises.
I work for a big European company, Microsoft is not going anywhere
There is always a case for bear view on Microsoft, but the strength of the ecosystem is unbeatable especially in enterprise. In Enterprise they have been killing it - no one comes close to that. Also the company has such a instinct to survive pivot and dominate - they have done it a few times in history, and have good chances to be there now.
They have incredible talent including in AI (Mustafa Suleyman co founder of Deepmind) - who is developing their internal model (recipe of development is not hard to get, even Grok got somewhere) - they have huge amount of enterprise data on their cloud, just waiting to be used. The integration of these services is just incredible what can be achieved from one single vendor. They have the cloud, they have applications, they dont have yet the model, they dont have a chip (google is probably better here).
That’s the point though. Microsoft isn’t a consumer growth story. Enterprise IT budgets drive the business, not private Office users.
I’m not even sure how one would apply a usage based Office model, which is what it looks like you’re saying.
Do I pay more if I get more emails? If I’m active in excel more often than normal? What does usage based Office even look like?
Again, if you are referring to CLOUD and NOT OFFICE, it’s already usage based pricing.
On deepseek, this has nothing to do with their own models. It’s the same as Claude and Anthropic. It seems you are still not aware that Copilot “rents” models from Anthropic and OpenAI. Deepseek will now be an option as well within copilot. This has nothing effect or relationship to their own models.
Yes memory will likely pose an issue, but (even still) memory is cyclical and will come back down. I do think the floor is permanently raised, but it will still go through cyclical cycles.
The best argument against MSFT is that their products suck and their customer base hates them