Zune (tee hee). Vista (snort). Bing (BWA HA HA). Windows phone (Stop it! I can’t breathe!).
Zune播放器（嘻嘻）。Vista操作系统（噗）。Bing必应搜索引擎（哇哈哈哈）。 Windows手机（别闹了！气都喘不过来了！）。
Laugh all you want. Most of us do. Microsoft’s investors are laughing harder. Over the past two years, the shares have returned 94 per cent, absolutely crushing the results of (where to start?) Google, Apple, SAP, Oracle, IBM and VMware. Its market value has risen by $180bn.
尽情笑吧。我们大多数人都在笑。微软(Microsoft)的投资者笑得更开怀。过去两年，微软股价上涨94%，轻松击败（从哪儿说起呢？）谷歌(Google)、苹果(Apple)、SAP、甲骨文(Oracle)、IBM和VMware的股票表现。其市值增加了1800亿美元。
What has happened? In the September quarter call with analysts two years ago, the word “PC” was used 23 times; in the most recent call, 11 times. The word “cloud”, on the other hand, went from 11 instances to 57. This sums it up. The company has gone — at least in the mind of the market — from being tied to a technology in permanent decline to being a company successfully delivering its product over the internet. It makes some sense, then, that the price surge is backed less by an increase in expected earnings than by a butterfly-like change in the valuation. The stock traded at nine times earnings two years ago. Now it goes for 17. The market anticipates sustained growth.
发生了什么？两年前9月份这个季度的业绩发布后，在面向分析师举行的电话会议中，“PC”这个词的使用频率是23次；但最近一个季度的电话会议中，使用频率是11次。另一方面，“云”这个词的频率从11次增加到57次。这就说明了问题。该公司（至少在市场的脑海中）不再与一种处于永久衰落的技术挂钩，而已经转型为一家通过互联网成功交付产品的公司。因此，股价上涨有理由在较小程度上依赖于预期盈利增长，在较大程度上受到类似蝴蝶效应的估值变化的推动。两年前，该股市盈率是9倍。现在接近17倍。市场预期持续增长。
There is more to it than that, of course. As Bernstein Research notes, it also helps that what looked like a permanent decline in PC sales levelled out, and a new reporting structure highlights how much of the company’s revenue comes from companies rather than consumers. Investors are also enthusiastic about new boss Satya Nadella, who appears serious about both cutting costs and returning more capital to shareholders.
当然不仅仅是上述理由。正如伯恩斯坦研究公司(Bernstein Research)指出，一度貌似永久性的PC销售下跌已稳定下来——这也有所帮助，而且新的业报结构强调了微软的营收有多少来自企业，而非消费者。投资者对新的掌门人萨帝亚·纳德拉(Satya Nadella)也很热情，他似乎很注重削减成本和向股东返还更多资本这两方面。
Sustaining the rally depends on the balance between the growing bits of Microsoft (the business software unit and the “cloud” bit of the consumer business) and the shrinking bits (consumer licences for Windows and Office). It is hard to see how to predict that — except by simple extrapolation from current trends, which suggests the stock is fairly valued. Microsoft has already proved it can defy expectations, though.
维持涨势取决于在微软不断增长的业务（商用软件业务和消费者“云”业务）和不断萎缩的业务（Windows操作系统和Office软件的消费者许可证书）两者间达到适当平衡。很难看出对此该如何预测——除了对当前趋势做简单的外推，这种外推似乎显示微软的股价估值公允。不过，微软已经证明自己能够打破市场预期。
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