Microsoft shares rose 1.25 to 117.125 in late U.S. trading, giving the software giant a market value of more than US$600 billion for the first time. Microsoft is the most valuable U.S. company, worth almost US$100 billion more than the second-largest U.S. company, General Electric.
Microsoft shares have risen more than 29 percent this month as investors snapped up the Redmond, Wash.-based company's shares amid optimism that the kick-off in February of its most ambitious software upgrade, Windows 2000, will boost sales and increase revenue growth.
"The database business is very strong right now, and with Windows 2000, Microsoft is prepared to participate in that in a more significant way," said Andrew Roskill, an analyst at Warburg Dillon Read who has a "buy" rating on Microsoft. "There's a fair amount of pent-up demand for this."
Microsoft's gains come as investors are increasingly shrugging off the potential impact the landmark antitrust trial may have on the company.
Microsoft's stock lagged throughout October and November, in the weeks before and after U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson released his initial ruling in the case, in which he concluded that Microsoft was a monopoly and its use of that position stifled innovation and harmed consumers.
Microsoft and lawyers from the Justice Department and the 19 states that filed the suit are meeting with a federally appointed mediator in the case. That mediator, federal circuit judge Richard Posner, is trying to craft a settlement that would avoid a final ruling in the case, which would likely be handed down early next year.
Analysts say that Microsoft will either settle the case on terms that don't harm the company financially, or will appeal any final ruling in the case, which would delay the final outcome for several years.
"It's either going to be settled on terms Microsoft can live with, or it'll get dragged out on appeal," Roskill said.
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