Praise for Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows 8 operating system continues to flow in after the company released a preview of the software yesterday.
Oppenheimer & Co.’s Brad Reback had indicated the trend yesterday with positive comments following the developer demo yesterday at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, Spain.
This morning, Nomura Equity Research’s Rick Sherlund reiterates a Buy on Microsoft shares and a $37 price target, writing that the demo shown by Microsoft was “very stable” and that the user interface “has been finished and the fit and finish looked very good.”
“The adaptation for mouse and keyboard was better than we had expected, improving the potential upgrade opportunity for notebooks and Ultrabook touch devices,” writes Sherlund.
The only problem for Microsoft, he opines, is that the radical new “Metro” user interface, which has been adjusted to touch-based user interaction, will take some getting used to as it pops up on all manner of computing devices.
And Bernstein Research’s Mark Moerdler reiterated an Outperform rating on Microsoft, writing that the new software “delivers a superb user experience, and is competitive against iOS and Android.”
The redesign of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser is also “superb,” he writes, and Moerdler sees some advantages in how Microsoft has set up its online store for “apps” for the new system:
The store currently offers both third-party and Microsoft apps. These apps are available for free during the beta testing phase of Windows, which should aid in building demand once the general release is available. The Store offers personalized recommendations, which could be an advantage vs. the Android store, where users often complain about how difficult it is to discover apps.
On a side note, Sherlund’s colleague, mobile analyst Stuart Jeffrey, reiterated a negative outlook on Microsoft’s hardware partner in phones, Nokia (NOK), writing that the company got little mention at all at the Windows 8 event.
“Mobile World Congress has been a big disappointment for Nokia,” writes Jeffrey, “and now the demons of a very difficult Q1 are likely to haunt the share price.”
Microsoft shares today are up 15 cents, or half a point, at $31.89. Nokia shares are down a penny at $5.28.
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