Will Microsoft (MSFT) Stock Be Helped by Partnering with Facebook on Trans-Atlantic Cable?
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Microsoft (MSFT) - Get Report are down 0.91% to $51.65 in mid-afternoon trading on Thursday as the company announced an agreement with Facebook (FB) to build a subsea cable across the Atlantic Ocean.
"The new 'MAREA' cable will help meet the growing customer demand for high speed, reliable connections for cloud and online services for Microsoft, Facebook and their customers," the companies said in a statement.
The cable will stretch from Northern Virginia to Bilbao, Spain and then to network hubs in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, the companies added. It will transport across 6,600 kilometers of ocean.
The cable system will be operated and managed by Telxius, Telefónica's (TEF) new telecommunications infrastructure company.
The companies said they are collaborating on this system to accelerate the development of the next-generation of Internet infrastructure, and to support growing data consumption and their respective cloud and online services.
The construction of the cable will begin in August and is expected to be complete in October 2017.
Shares of Facebook are gaining 1.24% to $119.35 on Thursday afternoon.
Separately, TheStreet Ratings Team has a "Buy" rating with a score of B+ on Microsoft stock.
The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures, reasonable valuation levels, good cash flow from operations, solid stock price performance and expanding profit margins.
The team believes its strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had sub par growth in net income.
Recently, TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this articles's author.
You can view the full analysis from the report here: MSFT
