Microsoft's StockMicrosoft (MSFT) was once the king of the computing world. When the company released a new operating system its stock would typically flourish in the years following the launch. Times have changed, however, and it isn’t the 1990s anymore. A graph that put together by Thomas Reuters paints a troubling picture for the once-dominant software giant. A year after the release of Windows 3.0, Windows 95 and Windows 98, shares of Microsoft were up 45.4%, 27.9% and 79.5%, respectively. But then Bill Gates handed over leadership of the company to current CEO Steve Ballmer in January of 2000 and Microsoft hasn’t been the same since.
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Following the release of Windows 2000 the month after Gates’ departure, Microsoft’s stock plummeted an astonishing 40.8% year-over-year. The company’s stock continued to fall in the years following the launch of Windows XP, Windows 7 and most recently Windows 8. Surprisingly, shares of Microsoft were up 7.6% year-over-year from 2007 to 2008 after the widely panned release of Windows Vista.
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If it wants to continue to survive in a post-PC world, Microsoft must obviously find a way to reverse this trend.
This article was originally published on BGR.com
