Microsoft is getting all the love but it still needs to address critical points

Microsoft has struggled for the past few years as new players and new products appealed more to consumers but not anymore. The latter part of the year showed that Microsoft can catch up -- sales are now surging but analysts say that the company still needs to address some critical points.

Analysts were sceptical about Microsoft's future in the first part of 2015 but that appears to be changing. The company is proving itself otherwise. Microsoft found its way back as some of its products suddenly surged past market mainstays. For instance, it has surpassed Apple's sales thanks to its Surface products. According to 1010's data, Microsoft went home with as much as 45 percent market share as opposed to Apple's 17 percent share in October.

“Microsoft is definitely getting their mojo back,” Mashable quoted analyst Patrick Moorhead in an email in the previous week, “but they have more progress to make before I can say they’re ‘back’ to the days of dominance in multiple areas.”

"When 2015 started, I didn’t think about Microsoft much, if at all," added Matt Weinberger via Business Insider Australia.

"Now, at the tail end of 2015, I’m the proud owner of an Xbox One video game console, a subscriber to the Office 365 cloud productivity suite, and a convert to Windows 10 and the Surface Pro 4 tablet," he explained.

The analysts over at Barron’s also estimate Microsoft shares to increase by as much as 30 percent in the next 18 months. Microsoft already traded around US$54 (AU$75) per share when it closed on Friday. Estimates suggest that Microsoft's current performance mean it can reach as much as US$70 (AU$97) per share come 2017.

The changing tides are thanks for Microsoft's decisions in the 2015. For instance, it combined the best of Windows 7 and 8 in its Window 10 offering. It is not perfect software but it did offer major updates. Thanks to these, more than 120 million computers are already running on it. Additionally, its Xbox One video game console received important updates that transformed it into a good contender against top dog Sony PlayStation 4.

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