A surge in Microsoft Corp's shares nearly unseated Apple Inc as the world's most valuable company on Wednesday, a day before the iPhone maker reports its quarterly results.

Fueled by strong quarterly growth in its Azure cloud-computing business, Microsoft's shares jumped 4.2% to end at a record $323.17, elevating the software maker's market capitalization to $2.426 trillion, just short of Apple's $2.461 trillion valuation, according to Refinitiv data.

Satya Nadella-run Microsoft has posted robust revenue of $45.3 billion and a net income of $20.5 billion for the July-September quarter, riding on a strong performance on its cloud, server, and Office businesses.

While revenues were up 22 per cent, net income registered 48 per cent growth as pandemic forced millions to work and learn from home.

Microsoft is giving all its employees a $1,500 (over Rs 1.12 lakh) pandemic bonus, in recognition of a challenging fiscal year that the tech giant just completed.

According to The Verge which has seen an internal memo, Microsoft is gifting the bonus to all staff below corporate vice president level that started on or before March 31, 2021.

The tech giant Microsoft said on Thursday that it has spotted multiple cyberattacks from Russia, China and Iran on individuals and organisations involved in the ongoing presidential campaigns in the United States.

In recent weeks, Microsoft has detected cyberattacks targeting people and organisations involved in the upcoming presidential election, including unsuccessful attacks on people associated with both the Trump and Biden campaigns, the company said on its blog.

Microsoft on Friday announced that co-founder Bill Gates has left its board of directors to devote more time to philanthropy.

The 64-year-old stopped being involved in day-to-day operations at the firm more than a decade ago, turning his attention to the foundation named after him and his wife, Melinda.

With the highest annual package of over $164,000, or Rs 1.17 crore, this year, IT giant Microsoft has continued its streak of emerging as the top recruiter on Day One of final placements at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).

Older as well as some newer IITs kicked off their first phase of the final placements process in two slots on Sunday.

After a failed $7 billion acquisition of Nokia's smartphone business five years back, Microsoft has announced a strategic collaboration with the Finnish company to accelerate transformation and innovation across industries with Cloud, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT).

The new partnership brings together Microsoft cloud solutions and Nokia's expertise in mission-critical networking, to help enterprises and communications service providers (CSPs) transform their businesses.

Ride-hailing major Ola is in advanced talks with tech giant Microsoft to raise about $150-200 million (about Rs 1,050-1,400 crore) in funding, according to sources.

The discussions are at an advanced stage and likely to be closed in the next 10-15 days, the sources privy to the development said.

Microsoft Corp's Azure cloud services grew more slowly in its first quarter even as profit and revenue beat estimates, the company said on Wednesday, a sign that competition is picking up in its fastest-growing business.

Revenue from Azure increased 59% in the quarter ended Sept. 30, but came in well below last year's 76% growth.

With Microsoft posting strong results, the company’s CEO Satya Nadella has got a 66 per cent raise in the 2018-19 fiscal, taking his total yearly earnings to a whopping USD 42.9 million, according to media reports on Thursday. While Nadella, 52, has a base salary of a little over USD 2.3 million, most of his pay came from stock awards, reported CNN Business. He received USD 29.6 million in stock award, USD 10,7 million in non-equity incentive plan compensation and around USD 111,000 in other compensation.

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