Back in the 1980s, there was a term in Japanese culture: “karoshi.” Essentially, it meant “death by overwork,” and referred to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events that were commonly connected to stress from work. There were those who thought karoshi had spread throughout the world, and tech giant Microsoft (MSFT) may have a case of karoshi on its own staff. The news did little to buoy investor sentiment, and shares ticked down fractionally in Wednesday afternoon’s trading.
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A report from People noted that Pratik Pandey, a 35-year-old engineer who emigrated from India to the United States, was found, face-down, on the Microsoft campus at 2:00 in the morning local time on August 20. Early word from the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner’s office revealed that Pandey had suffered a heart attack, which would be one of those cardiovascular events talked about in the intro.
There were “…no signs of any suspicious activity or behavior,” reports noted, and the Mountain View Police Department was not staging a criminal investigation. Word from Pandey’s family, specifically his uncle Manoj, noted that he had been recently pulling a lot of late nights at work, despite being a “…very positive person.” Manoj, in turn, turned to tech companies like Microsoft to warn their employees about the dangers of overwork, noting, “That will probably save a life.”
PowerToys Gets New Features
Leaving aside that tragedy, Microsoft rolled out new features for PowerToys which would bring back a couple of key Windows tools to the platform. Version 0.94, reports note, will offer the ability to schedule a switch between light and dark modes, thus modifying your screen for daytime or nighttime use accordingly.
Further, the inherent problem of PowerToys—a surfeit of options—may also be addressed with the new update. Previously, there were issues with keyboard shortcuts. Periodically, thanks to the sheer number of PowerToys available, one keyboard shortcut could activate two or more PowerToys. But now, conflicts will be highlighted in red whenever one is found to exist.
Is Microsoft a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on MSFT stock based on 34 Buys and one Hold assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 23.53% rally in its share price over the past year, the average MSFT price target of $623.60 per share implies 22.82% upside potential.
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