Microsoft Corporation Introduces Santa Tracker Website For Kids, This Holiday Season

The technology corporation along with Alphabet launched its Santa tracker website with many games, movies and music for the kids to enjoy during the holidays. 

On December 24, 2015 Microsoft Corporation and Alphabet’s Google, launched a website for kids to track Santa. The multinational technology corporation has collaborated with NORAD – North American Aerospace Defense Command to make its personal Santa Tracker. This is the third time that the Norad and the giant are coming together to work on a Santa project.

On the other hands, Google has also opted for a similar attraction for the kids this Christmas as it is offering a map interface which will allow children to know the location of Santa, the distance and also the number of gifts that he has delivered so far. “Code Boogie” is a Christmas themed game is also being offered on the website. It is just not a simple game but teaches kids the basic programming functions. This website also has a holiday phrase translator along with a number of other games.

This year the Redmond based tech company has introduced a number of other functions to its Santa Tracker Website including coloring themed books which comes in Windows 10 and also Windows Map integrations. The website also includes games, holiday and Christmas season songs, shows and movies for the kids. The tech giant has managed to do various integrations with Windows Maps, Cortana and Bing.

Furthermore, it has tried to make the Cortana experience more efficient. For example: if a user ask Cortana exactly where Santa is, she lets them know the exact location of him along with his visuals and also the details about where he is presently and where he will be later.

In other news, Microsoft stock was all over the news in 2015, with its ups and downs all throughout the year. It went through a little down fall at the beginning of the year but it is definitely ending the year on a good note at a 20% hike in its share price. In 2015, the tech company’s Surface tablets made gains in the current year but fell to $672 million in the first quarter of fiscal year 2016. Initially in the first quarter of fiscal year 2015, the revenue from Surface tablets was at $908 million.

The reason for this decline in the revenue, according to the tech giant was due to the increased demand for its new Surface Pro 4. In the tablet market, however according to prediction, 2016 is going to be an exceptional year. According to IDC, Microsoft tablets are expected to have gained 18% of the tablet market.

Microsoft Corporation To Release Dividend on March 10.

The tech giant is planning on releasing its dividend for the February crowd on March 10.

According to the reports by the tech giant, Microsoft Corporation, the company will be releasing its dividend on March 10. A dividend of $0.36 per share will be given to shareholders who have had the shares from February 18 which clearly indicated the dividend rate per year of $1.44 and a yield of 2.64%. On the other hand, the price target has been raised by analysts to $65.00 per share with a rating of Buy on Microsoft’s stock, as per the note issued by the experts to the investors of the company.

At the trading session on Wednesday, the multinational technology corporation’s shares were being traded at a share price of $54.98 which indicated a decline of 1.50% from the previous stock price. The reason for the decline was that that on December 9, the tech stock market was down too which affected a number of other tech companies including the Silicon Valley giant Apple, Inc.

The price to earnings ratio of the Redmond, Washington based corporation is currently at 36.56 with a market capitalization of $439.18 billion. In a year’s time, the highest level at which Microsoft shares were seen at was $56.23 and the lowest that the share price was witnessed at was $39.72. Earnings per share, on the other hand, that were reported by the technology company was $0.67 which beat the analyst’s expectation of $0.58 indicating a difference of $0.09 in the actual and estimated EPS. The total revenue reported by MSFT was $21.66 billion in comparison to the analyst’s calculations of $21 billion again showing a difference of as much as 0.66 billion.

In the same quarter last year, the revenue that was reported by the tech giant was 6.60% below the revenue for the current period and the earnings per share that were reported by the company were $0.54. As per the current estimations of the analysts, the company is likely to report EPS of $2.77 for the present fiscal year.

Insider trading was witnessed in the tech corporation and was disclosed to the SEC according to which the CAO of the tech company sold 20,000 shares at a price of $53.51 per share. The total transaction was worth $6.31 million. Another associate of the company Braun Stacey sold as many as 210,196 in the previous quarter.

A number of stock experts have given their ratings for the stock of the tech company. Out of 31, 20 analysts have given a rating of Buy while 4 have given a rating of Sell and finally 10 have suggested a Hold.