Last Updated: September 05, 2022, 08:21 IST

On Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan birth anniversary, here's a look at some of the books written by him. (Representative image: Shutterstock)

HAPPY TEACHERS DAY 2022: From a Philosopher to Vice President and President of India, Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan served in a variety of capacities, but he is best remembered for his contributions as a teacher. Dr Radhakrishnan is celebrated for dedicating his life to education and working to raise educational standards in the country. His birthday, September 5th, has been celebrated nationwide as Teachers Day since 1962.

ALSO READ:Happy Teachers Day 2022: Heartwarming Wishes, Messages, Images, Quotes and WhatsApp Greetings to Share With Your Guru

Dr Radhakrishnan asserted that books serve as a means of bridging cultural divides. So, on this Teachers Day, lets revisit some of his books that illustrate the great man that he was.

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Teacher's Day 2022: 10 Books by Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan that Illustrate the Great Man that he was - News18

It is generally understood that Muslims are incapable of being undogmatic, free from compulsion, and unable to hold their beliefs at arms length to make room for satire and self-criticism. The possibility of a culture of freedom is to see humour, and joke about things in life while still upholding the values of whatever your faith is.

Forget Middle Eastern Muslims, even European Muslims find it difficult. For Indian Muslims, it goes a few steps ahead. They generally can make fun of gods and goddesses of other faiths, but when it comes to their own, out come the swords and stones.

Lampooning gods and goddesses are not alien to the majority culture of Hinduism in India, among Buddhists (laughing roly-poly Buddha souvenirs in all gift shops in any Asian country) or in Sikhism. Only Muslims keep satire away from their text, Prophet, Caliphs and events following the edicts in the Hadith.

That is not to say Muslims do not have a sense of humour. It is just certain areas they have kept taboo, but feel free to indulge when it comes to the faith of other communities. Hence, Muslim stand-up comedians are lionised because of this one-way satire, but Muslim humourists who venture into taboo territories are damned, cursed, issued death threats and even assassinated.

I chanced upon Aziz Nesins profile while researching controversial Muslim figures. The Great Turkish Contrarian stands tall in the satire scene, and he was also the Turkish translator of Salman Rushdies The Satanic Verses in 1993. A fierce critic of the state and a committed enemy of conservatism, he regularly got on peoples nerves, be they Islamists, secularists, or liberals, and this cost him his freedom many times. An attempt to murder him was unsuccessful when a hotel where he was gathered with other secularists was burned down for inciting hatred by publishing excerpts from Rushdies book.

Now to recall, Turkey is fiercely secular due to Kemalism (Ataturks abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate and his iron will to get Turkey modernised). So as a satirical writer he was celebrated in intellectual circles, a gallery showcasing his legacy in Istanbuls most passionately conservative neighbourhood of all places Tophane. But the future generations will hardly know about his legacy; an incident of paint vandalism on the gallery hoarding proved how much he was misunderstood in Erdogans Turkey.

Europe is not free of this outrage and sensitivity from Muslims; the Charlie Hebdo massacre is not far in memory, and neither is the beheading of Samuel Paty. Comedians, writers, painters, cartoonists, satirists, and actors continue to avoid Islams taboo subjects, preferring to focus on Jews, Hindus, Americans, Europeans, and the occasional Sikh.

The history of satire in European culture is the history of emancipation from the divine rule that is, Enlightenment. Where Voltaire was a giant among men of letters in the Age of Enlightenment, its values too were not spared by Jonathan Swift in his Gullivers Travels enriching civilised discourse of publishing counter arguments, rebuttals, rejoinders to opinions, satire, enacting plays leading to the great Western culture of resisting authority, keeping it in check if it gets tyrannical.

People forget Rushdies book did not get a fatwa just because it satirised the Prophet and his wives but because Khomeini was ridiculed in it too and with authoritarian figures and totalitarian regimes suppressing dissent is a tradition and habit.

For centuries, the Islamic world kept itself isolated from the rest of humankind, gazing at its shadows, like Platos allegory of the cave; convinced that no wider world existed beyond its borders only to have the more advanced other show up, violently throwing the cave open Napoleon Bonapartes fleet landing at Alexandria in 1798, for example.

Instead of accepting that a technologically superior power defeated a locked standstill civilisation, the instinct was to turn towards Islam and identity politics; always a perfect opportunity for orthodox religious zealots to cash in when there was a geopolitical crisis. Feeding the collective fears of Muslims, invoking the memory of the Prophets time the orthodoxy pursued their religious mission turning peoples shame into fear a useful weapon to keep the masses under control.

What the outrage industry does further exploits this fear of people using the rise of right-wing political parties, conservative politicians and sentiments as fodder to prove their narrative of the Oppression Olympics of Muslims worldwide. Muslim and non-Muslim communities demanding answers for Arab expansionism, invasions, conquests, Turkic-Mongol pillage and plunder in history, put the outrage industry in a corner so they build this ecosystem of ABCEs (abroad-based conflict entrepreneurs) funded by the military-industrial complex always looking for a war and disgruntled billionaires like Soros wanting to be key players in geopolitics.

The Muslim world never having self-introspected for centuries lap up the narrative of oppression and turn on the critics of Islams regressive practices, literally terming them as traitors who have declared war and tried to shut them down with the constructed and misleading term Islamophobia.

In India the Khan Market outrage brigade of elite Muslim liberals has made it common to label every dissenter within the Muslim community as a house nigger and non-Muslim as a Sanghi or bhakt (used derogatively to manipulate and malign issues such as CAA, the NRC, Triple Talaq, Uniform Civil Code, Article 370, Agniveer scheme, farming laws, etc). The more the outrage industry puts perimeters around the Indian Muslim minds, the more they rely on left-leaning, anti-Hindu, anti-India portals such as The Wire, Quint, News Laundry, Scroll, etc publications invested in breaking India up.

In return, the 18 crores 90 lakh Muslims (2011 census) firmly believe in the majority of Hindus hostility, thus enforcing a moral code on its own Muslims strictly, pressurising them to show loyalty to the community (Ummah) rather than the nation (India).

The outrage cabal practises psychological and intellectual self-deceit by amplifying incidents against Muslims ferociously feeding into the global narrative of Indian Muslims targeted by Hindus and the global agenda of keeping India embroiled in its fault lines. Simultaneously, the Indian Muslim mind entangled in the victimhood narrative censors crimes of their own Muslims against Hindus or even Muslims feigning ignorance.

Anyone trying to objectively create a bridge between the two mistrusting communities due to this lopsided media shenanigans is loathed and termed a traitor to the Muslim cause (Darul Islam). Because of the advent of technology and millions of Muslim households now picking up smartphones and having access to the Internet, the influence of the outside world is increasingly forcing many to rethink, relearn, unlearn, and criticise what is fed to them.

The outrage industry closes ranks and punishes those who step out of the line Islamic reformists have paid dearly time and again with their lives too for attempting to herald in change.

It will require tremendous rethinking, and some out-of-the-box strategies to come up with to cope and stay many steps ahead of this psy-ops war in the 21st century.

The rest is here:

The Outrage Industry - The New Indian

As climate scientists analyze the boiling summer of 2022, Ill eagerly await their findings. How much can we attribute to increased fossil fuel use caused by the economic recovery? And how much can we attribute to the record levels of hot air being spewed by reactionary conservative politicians about environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing?

This summer, Texas began implementing a law requiring state pension funds to divest from firms its comptroller views as hostile to the fossil fuel industry. Setting aside the merits of this policy, its botched rollout provided exactly the kind of regulatory uncertainty that capitalists from both parties agree really kills jobs.

Meanwhile, Floridas Republican governor led a resolution to prevent state pension funds from considering ESG factors in investment decisions. I wonder how this was received by the 14,900 employees of Florida-based energy giant NextEra, which has its 2022 ESG report and promise of a real plan for zero front and center on its website.

ESG investing is hard to define. But, in general, it places other priorities reducing inequality or increasing diversity, for example on equal footing with financial returns. In recent years, ESG has been closely identified in the public mind with the fight against global warming. If you have been living under a rock for the past 10 years, first of all, congratulations on your super low-carbon lifestyle. Second, you might ask: Why is this even a category? Doesnt any business decision include factors other than pure financial returns?

Earlier this year, HSBCs Stuart Kirk gave a now infamous speech Why Investors Need Not Worry About Climate Risk at an ESG conference. Kirk, then the head of responsible investment and research atthe bank, complained about the amount of work involved in calculating climate risk. His take on the climate crisis predicted hit to GDP growth was who cares? He cited the average loan term at his bank (six years) and said, what happens to the planet in year seven is actually irrelevant to our loan book.

Unsurprisingly, he was soon relieved of his duties at HSBC. Last week he resurfaced in the pages of the Financial Times with a fascinating editorial.

Kirks criticisms, however, shed light on a paradox at the heart of ESG.

Most of the people whose job it is to raise and invest money under the ESG label are input focused. That means they take ESG factors into account when making investment decisions with the ultimate goal of risk-adjusted returns. Most of their clients, however, are output focused. That means they expect an ESG fund that touts its green credentials to completely eschew fossil fuel stocks and steer capital into renewable energy companies.

Some, like Kirk, suggest that regulators and practitioners split ESG in two along this input/output axis. They argue this would bring greater clarity to the industry and allow ESG to reach its potential.

I work in the field of sustainable and responsible business. I am the president of a certified B Corporation and a Ph.D. candidate in the field of sustainability. When I speak to my clients, their priority is always on output. They ask: How can the financial products and professional services you provide help me build more affordable housing and create more jobs in my community?

As an output-focused investor, I admit Im probably oversimplifying the very hard task facing my input-focused fund managers. The job of an ESG manager sounds very difficult. In fact, it is hard to be in any relationship when the other partner has difficulty articulating what they want.

Here is what I want: I want the market value of the companies that are heavily invested in resolving the climate crisis to grow. I want them to have access to the capital they need to hire the smartest people in the world, to invest in the best technology and to communicate to their customers and communities about how to use it as effectively as possible. I do not want to be an owner of a company remember, that is what investors are that is heavily invested in making our problems worse.

But here is what I want even more: I want reactionary conservative politicians to dispense with the easy political stunts and engage with the hard work required to lead us out of this crisis. Because at the end of the day, investment choices and consumer decisions even in the billions of dollars are no substitute for sound public policy. I want leaders to use incentives and constraints to fundamentally change the world markets in which fund managers invest my money. And, ultimately, I want ESG to become meaningless not because it suffers from the lack of definition, but because based on changes in policy and culture we will have moved sustainability to the center of all business decisions.

Phil Glynn is president of Travois a certified B Corporation that finances housing and economic development in Indigenous communities. Follow him on Twitter: @glynnkc

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The debate over ESG investing: lots of hot air - The Hill

Apple unveiled a slate of new products on Wednesday, including the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus and iPhone 14 Pro models, which feature larger displays, improved battery life and an upgraded camera with more advanced lenses.

The company also introduced the completely redesigned Apple Watch Ultra, which is targeted toward outdoor sports enthusiasts and features a larger screen wrapped in a titanium case.

Additionally, the company revealed its Apple Watch Series 8. New features include "low power mode," which extends the battery life up to 36 hours from a single charge.

However, new product launches have done little to move the company's stock price in the past, industry analysts tell CNBC. Meanwhile, shares typically rise after Apple reports earnings that beat the market's expectations.

At the stock market open on Sept. 7, Apple's shares were trading at $154.83 per share. That's down slightly from $157.96 per share at the close of trading on Sept. 1.

If you had invested $1,000 into Apple a year ago, you'd see a slight return on your investment and have about $1,007 as of Sept. 6, 2022, according to CNBC's calculations.

If you had invested $1,000 into Apple five years ago, your investment would be worth about $3,916 now nearly tripling in value, according to CNBC's calculations.

And if you had given your $1,000 investment a decade to grow, you'd have about $6,665 now up nearly 540%, according to CNBC's calculations, which also factors in the company's various stock splits over the years.

Apple's stock began trading publicly on Dec. 12, 1980 at $22 per share. If you had invested $1,000 into the company during its early days, your investment would be worth $1,635,847 as of Sept. 6.

Apple briefly became the first U.S. company to be valued at $3 trillion in January 2022. The tech giant was also the first publicly traded U.S. company to be valued at $1 trillion and $2 trillion.

However, despite Apple's gains, it's important to note that a company's past performance can't be used to predict its potential success in the future.

Given the volatility of the stock market, investing in individual stocks can be a risky financial move.

Instead, a passive investment strategy tends to make sense for most investors. If you're interested in investing in the stock market, try an index fund that follows the S&P 500, which tracks the stock performance of the top 500 American companies.

As of Sept. 6, the S&P 500 was down about 14% compared to 12 months ago. However, the index has grown by about 58% since 2017, increased by nearly 173% since 2012 and ballooned by about 2,920% since 1980.

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Don't miss: Elon Musk sold nearly $7 billion worth of Tesla stockheres how much money youd have if youd invested $1,000 in the company 10 years ago

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Apple just announced its new iPhone 14here's how much you'd have if you invested $1,000 a decade ago - CNBC

Reality TV star Kim Kardashian launched a private equity fund, Skky Partners, which she co-founded with Jay Sammons, a former partner at the investment firm Carlyle Group.

Photo by James Devaney/GC Images via Getty Images

Reality TV star Kim Kardashian launched a private equity fund, Skky Partners, which she co-founded with Jay Sammons, a former partner at the investment firm Carlyle Group.

"Together we hope to leverage our complementary expertise to build the next generation Consumer & Media private equity firm," Kardashian wrote on Twitter.

Alongside investing in consumer and media companies, the firm will also target the hospitality, luxury and digital and e-commerce sectors, Skky Partners tweeted.

It said it would pursue control and minority investments in these industries.

Kardashian and Sammons, who previously ran the Carlyle Group's global consumer, media and retail division and left the company in July, will serve as co-founders and co-managing partners, with Sammons running daily operations at the firm. Sammons has previously worked with global brands like Supreme, Beats by Dr.Dre, Vogue, McDonald's China and Moncler, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Kardashian's mother and long-time manager, Kris Jenner, is also a partner at the new firm. On Twitter, she said she was "proud, honored and excited" about joining the firm.

Skky Partners did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

Kardashian originally became famous on reality TV show "Keeping Up with the Kardashians," which ran from 2007 until 2021. She now stars in the spin-off show "The Kardashians" and has 329 million followers on Instagram.

With the launch for Skky Partners, Kardashian has become the latest celebrity to join the private equity and venture capital industry, joining the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Gwyneth Paltrow and Serena Williams.

Tennis star Williams' venture capital firm Serena Ventures raised $111 million in March and has invested in over 50 companies worth a total of more than $14 billion since it was founded in 2014. This includes online learning platform MasterClass and social audio app Clubhouse.

Kardashian already has a track record as a successful entrepreneur. Her shapewear brand Skims was valued at $3.2 billion in January, while her make-up brand KKW gained widespread popularity after launching in 2017. In June, the entrepreneur rebranded KKW to SKKN as the company shifted from make-up to skin care.

This is also not the first time Kardashian has publicly spoken about finance and investing. In 2021, the star posted advertisements for cryptocurrency on her Instagram account, which had around 228 million followers at the time. She has since been sued by investors of the cryptocurrency she promoted, EthereumMax. The class action, which was filed earlier this year, claims that Kardashian and other celebrities who promoted the token collaborated with its creators to "misleadingly promote and sell" it.

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Kim Kardashian launches private equity firm, becoming the latest celeb to enter the investment industry - CNBC

Administrative affairs | News releases | UW and the community

September 8, 2022

The University of Washington Board of Regents on Thursday approved a resolution to begin exiting all direct investments in fossil-fuel companies with the goal of complete divestiture by Fiscal Year 2027. The resolution includes a commitment not to renew indirect investments in funds primarily focusing on fossil-fuel extraction or reserves. Both commitments include allowances for firms contributing to the transition to sustainable energy.

The resolution also includes a goal of investing at least 2.5% of the UWs entire Consolidated Endowment Fund in climate-solutions companies or asset managers and a commitment to achieving net-zero emissions in the Universitys endowment fund by Fiscal Year 2050.

The Boards action puts the UW among the leaders in higher education and among a small group of public universities acting on climate change through its investments.

The Board of Regents recognizes the gravity and the urgency of the situation with respect to climate change. With this resolution, the Board wishes to avoid greenwashing and to take meaningful action, putting the University of Washington in the front ranks of universities addressing climate change through research, teaching, operations and investments, said David Zeeck, chair of the UW Board of Regents. This is an early step in a very important journey to reduce the UWs impact on the environment through our investments and operations. We want to thank both the petitioners for bringing this issue to the fore and the members of the Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing for their considered, actionable recommendations.

The Boards directives acknowledge the need to act, the incomplete energy transition, lack of corporate disclosures of greenhouse gas emissions precluding measurement of portfolio emissions, and the Boards fiduciary duties to the people of Washington. The Board will receive annual reports on progress in sustainable investing and measuring portfolio emissions and will revisit these directives at regular intervals. Future investment reports to the Board will include measurement of portfolio emissions as soon as regulatory mandates or corporate disclosures make this possible with the goal of reducing portfolio emissions over time.

The resolution comes approximately 18 months after the UWs Institutional Climate Action group submitted a petition. The Board convened an Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing (ASCRI) over the summer of 2021, and the committee met from September 2021 to April 2022. The committee presented its recommendations to the Board in May and the Board asked the University of Washington Investment Management Company (UWINCO) for its evaluation of the recommendations, which were presented in June. The Board will consider revised climate-investing guidelines at its November meeting.

This is an important step forward for UW in realizing the full impact of all of the ways we can be part of the solution to addressing climate change, said Ben Packard, chair of the ACSRI and executive director of EarthLab at the UW. Our investment portfolio, research, teaching and operations are all part of mitigating climate change and to making our communities more resilient. The ACSRI recommendations acknowledge UW Regents should take these steps to deliver on their fiduciary responsibility.

For more information, contact Victor Balta at balta@uw.edu.

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UW Board of Regents votes to exit direct fossil fuel investments by 2027 - University of Washington

WILMINGTON, N.C., Sept. 8, 2022 / PRNewswire SaaS Alerts,the cybersecurity company purpose-built for managed service providers(MSPs) to protect and monetize their customers' core business SaaSapplications, announced today that it has secured a $22 million growth investment from global software investor Insight Partners to accelerate the growth of its SaaS Security monitoring and response platform.

The accelerated rate of SaaS Application adoption bybusinesses, driven by the need to provide collaboration and productivitytools to remote workforces and for more centralized and tightlycontrolled business data resources, has elevated awareness and criticalconcern for major threat vectors and security gaps that exist in SaaSApplication security. These security concerns present opportunities forMSPs to better safeguard their clients while offering SaaS securityservices that drive profitable new revenue streams.

SaaS Alerts was designed to help MSPs monitor and protect theircustomers' usage of today's most popular SaaS applications such asMicrosoft 365, Google Workspace, Salesforce, Dropbox and more and tosafeguard against security threats to a business' SaaS environment suchas data theft, data that's at risk due to unintentional employee mishapsand actions taken by bad actors.

"We couldn't be more excited to partner with Insight Partnersand we see their investment in SaaS Alerts as a monumental endorsementfor what we have built and what we intend to build as we collaborategoing forward," said Jim Lippie, CEO ofSaaS Alerts. "I'm very proud of our team for reaching this milestone andlook forward to working with Insight to continue to build value for ourMSP partners and stakeholders."

"SaaS applicationshave become essential for businesses of every size and MSPs need theability to better protect those applications on behalf of theircustomers. SaaS Alerts has pioneered SaaS security for MSPs and has aclear vision for how detecting and correlating abnormal user behaviorcan greatly impact the MSP industry," said Philine Huizing, Principal atInsight Partners. "We're excited to partner with SaaS Alerts as thecompany scales to address this unique opportunity."

About SaaS Alerts

SaaSAlerts is the cybersecurity company purpose-built for MSPs to protectand monetize customers' core SaaS business applications. SaaS Alertsoffers a unified, real-time monitoring platform for MSPs to protectagainst: data theft, data at risk and bad actors and integrates with themost popular SaaS Applications. Learn more at http://www.saasalerts.com.

About Insight Partners

InsightPartners is a global software investor partnering with high-growthtechnology, software, and Internet startup and ScaleUp companies thatare driving transformative change in their industries. As of June 30, 2022, the firm has over $80Bin regulatory assets under management. Insight Partners has invested inmore than 700 companies worldwide and has seen over 55 portfoliocompanies achieve an IPO. Headquartered in New York City, Insight has offices in London, Tel Aviv,and Palo Alto. Insight's mission is to find, fund, and worksuccessfully with visionary executives, providing them with practical,hands-on software expertise to foster long-term success. InsightPartners meets great software leaders where they are in their growthjourney, from their first investment to IPO. For more information onInsight and all its investments, visit insightpartners.com or follow us on Twitter @insightpartners.

SOURCE: SaaS Alerts

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SaaS Alerts Secures $22M Investment from Insight Partners to Scale SaaS Security Monitoring and Response Platform - DARKReading

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Silence Therapeutics plc, Nasdaq: SLN (Silence or the Company), a leader in the discovery, development and delivery of novel short interfering ribonucleic acid (siRNA) therapeutics for the treatment of diseases with significant unmet medical need, today announced that company management will participate in the following conferences:

Webcasts of the fireside chats can be accessed in the Investors section of the Silence website at http://www.silence-therapeutics.com.

About Silence TherapeuticsSilence Therapeutics is developing a new generation of medicines by harnessing the bodys natural mechanism of RNA interference, or RNAi, to inhibit the expression of specific target genes thought to play a role in the pathology of diseases with significant unmet need. Silences proprietary mRNAi GOLD platform can be used to create siRNAs (short interfering RNAs) that precisely target and silence disease-associated genes in the liver, which represents a substantial opportunity. Silences wholly owned product candidates include SLN360 designed to address the high and prevalent unmet medical need in reducing cardiovascular risk in people born with high levels of lipoprotein(a) and SLN124 designed to address rare hematological diseases. Silence also maintains ongoing research and development collaborations with AstraZeneca, Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, and Hansoh Pharma, among others. For more information, please visit https://www.silence-therapeutics.com/.

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Silence Therapeutics to Participate in September Investment Conferences - Business Wire

Tech stocks suffered a rough 2022 after seeing strong gains last year. But some tech companies are good investments whether the stock market is in bear or bull territory. Among these are Apple (AAPL -0.96%) and Microsoft (MSFT 0.17%). They were once rivals during the rise of personal computers, but now are following different avenues to success.

The price appreciation of these stocks, even with this-year's downturn, illustrates why Apple and Microsoft are excellent investments. While both hit 52-week lows this year during 2022's tech sell-off, their stocks remain well above prices before the coronavirus pandemic struck in 2020.

Data by YCharts.

In an ideal world, investors can own shares of both companies. But if you had to choose between these two tech heavyweights, a look at each reveals that one emerges as the better long-term investment.

One reason to invest in Apple is its impressive sales growth. Revenue rose an astounding 33% year over year in the company's fiscal 2021 and 6% in 2020, despite the onset of the pandemic forcing store closures amid widespread lockdowns.

This trend is continuing in 2022. In Apple's fiscal third quarter ended June 25, revenue reached $83 billion, a record for Q3 sales. Through nine months of its fiscal 2022, Apple hit net sales of $304.2 billion, compared to $282.5 billion last year, despite challenging macroeconomic headwinds such as inflation and supply chain constraints.

Apple's revenue growth is due to several reasons, with its hallmark hardware products leading the way. The popularity of Apple products reached record levels in Q3 as the company hit an all-time high in the number of adopted devices.

Among Apple's hardware products, the iPhone stands out. iPhone sales accounted for nearly half of Apple's Q3 revenue. But the company is also growing income from its digital offerings, such as its Apple-TV streaming service. These non-hardware products, grouped under the company's services segment, reached record Q3 revenue of $19.6 billion, up from last year's $17.5 billion.

Thanks in part to the company's streak of stock buybacks, Apple appeals to investors such as Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway owns nearly 895 million shares of Apple stock.Apple has repurchased shares of its stock for years,including 143 million shares in Q3, up from Q2's 137 million shares repurchased.

Like Apple, Microsoft is riding a wave of success, despite the pandemic and macroeconomic headwinds such as a strong U.S. dollar. The company wrapped up fiscal year 2022, ended June 30, with $198.3 billion in revenue, up 18% over 2021.In fact, Microsoft's year-over-year revenue growth rate has risen in recent years.

Data source: Microsoft. YOY = year-over-year.

Microsoft's revenue growth is due to its shift to cloud computing under Satya Nadella, who became CEO in 2014. The company's Microsoft Cloud revenue increased 32% year over year in fiscal 2022.

Microsoft offers an array of cloud-related solutions, from data storage to cloud-based software applications, and has successfully transitioned its ubiquitous Office products to a software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscription model that generates a recurring revenue stream. In fiscal 2022, Office SaaS subscriptions grew 14% among its commercial customers and 15% with consumers.

Microsoft also boasts a strong balance sheet. The company exited its fiscal fourth quarter, ended June 30, with $364.8 billion in total assets, compared to $198.3 billion in total liabilities. Its Q4 cash and equivalents plus short-term investments were an impressive $104.8 billion.

While Apple and Microsoft possess many appealing elements, downsides exist. A new tax on stock buybacks could affect both companies' approaches to repurchasing shares.

Apple's reliance on iPhone sales can become a weakness. If the new iPhone 14 fails to maintain the iPhone's popularity with consumers, Apple's revenue will suffer. That's what happened in 2019. When iPhone sales softened that year, total revenue dropped 2% year over year despite sales increases in every other Apple product and service.

Similarly, Microsoft's dominance in the PC market, where its market share is a little over 76%, has become a weak point. As consumers spend more time on mobile devices, the importance of PCs has waned. Microsoft blamed a deteriorating PC market, combined with pandemic-induced production shutdowns in China, for Q4's 2% year-over-year decline in its Windows licensing revenue from PC manufacturers.

But unlike Apple's reliance on the iPhone, Microsoft is a more diversified business. The company's offerings include its expanding Xbox gaming division, which is in the process of acquiring Activision Blizzard, and digital advertising. The latter segment saw a 27% increase in fiscal 2022 revenueand recently acquired Netflix as a customer.

Moreover, Microsoft will benefit from cloud computing industry growth, which is forecast to expand from $706.6 billion last year to $1.3 trillion by 2025. And Microsoft's cloud business isn't a single product line like Apple's iPhone. Cloud computing consists of disparate areas essential to business clients, such as cybersecurity.

As a result, switching costs are high, helping Microsoft retain customers. These factors give Microsoft the edge as the better long-term investment.

Robert Izquierdo has positions in Activision Blizzard, Apple, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Activision Blizzard, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway (B shares), and Microsoft. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2023 $200 calls on Berkshire Hathaway (B shares), long March 2023 $120 calls on Apple, short January 2023 $200 puts on Berkshire Hathaway (B shares), short January 2023 $265 calls on Berkshire Hathaway (B shares), and short March 2023 $130 calls on Apple. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Apple vs Microsoft: Which Stock Is the Better Long-Term Investment? - The Motley Fool

SINGAPORE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--True Global Ventures 4 Plus (TGV 4 Plus) Fund and TGV 4 Plus Follow On Fund (TGV 4 Plus FoF) today announce a US$17.2m convertible note investment into Animoca Brands out of a total raise of US$110m. Other investors included Boyu Capital, Singapores Sovereign Wealth Fund Temasek and GGV Capital. The investment comes after Animoca Brands second closing at a valuation of US$5.9 billion (based on Australian dollar exchange rates at the time), announced on July 12, 2022. The current investment is to further support Animoca Brands mission to deliver digital property rights to the world's gamers and Internet users, thereby creating a new asset class, play-to-earn economies, and a more equitable digital framework contributing to the building of the open metaverse.

TGV has been an early backer of Animoca Brands since early 2019 and has seen it achieve unicorn status in May 2021. Animoca Brands has derived much of its growth in value from the revenues of its blockchain projects and subsidiaries, as well as the over 340 investments it has made in the open metaverse.

Besides Animoca Brands, the TGV 4 Plus base fund has also invested in other leading companies such as The Sandbox (a subsidiary of Animoca Brands), Forge, Chromaway, Coinhouse, GCEX, Chronicled, Enjinstarter, Iomob and Dedoco and others.

Todays announcement marks the first investment made by the new TGV 4 Plus FoF, which focuses on investing a majority of its capital into selected TGV 4 Plus base fund companies. TGV 4 Plus Follow On Fund will consider making additional investments in other late stage web3 deals as the opportunities arise.

The TGV 4 Plus FoF completed its first closing in June 2022 for US$146m. TGV 4 Plus FoF has 15 General Partners (GP) who lead the fund and its Investment Committee, investing more than US$62m of their money into the fund. This represents a total GP commitment of over 40% of the total fund size and over US$4m per GP on average.

Yat Siu, the co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, commented: We are honoured that the TGV 4 Plus Follow On Fund has chosen Animoca Brands as its first investment and are deeply grateful for TGVs continued support. Thanks to the shared network effect of the open metaverse, the funding of late stage companies like us also provides a boost to early stage growth, so we believe this is a positive development for the entire ecosystem.

TGV General Partner Duan Stojanovi adds, Im impressed by the number and quality of strategic acquisitions and investments that Animoca Brands has made. It is one of the big winners of the market correction, and is likely to emerge stronger from this down market similarly to how companies like Amazon emerged from the Dotcom crash.

Im happy to see the underlying business traction in the overall web3 ecosystem, led by many of Animoca Brands initiatives. Im also thrilled by the new senior management appointments who will complement the existing strong management team that will take the company to the next level, said TGV General Partner Kelly Choo.

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About Animoca Brands

Animoca Brands, a Deloitte Tech Fast winner and ranked in the Financial Times list of High Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2021, is a leader in digital entertainment, blockchain, and gamification that is working to advance digital property rights and contribute to the establishment of the open metaverse. The company develops and publishes a broad portfolio of products including the REVV token and SAND token; original games including The Sandbox, Crazy Kings, and Crazy Defense Heroes; and products utilizing popular intellectual properties

including Disney, WWE, Snoop Dogg, The Walking Dead, Power Rangers, MotoGP, and Formula E. It has multiple subsidiaries, including The Sandbox, Blowfish Studios, Quidd, GAMEE, nWay, Pixowl, Forj, Lympo, Grease Monkey Games, Eden Games, Darewise Entertainment, Notre Game, and TinyTap. Animoca Brands has a growing portfolio of more than 340 investments, including Colossal, Axie Infinity, OpenSea, Dapper Labs (NBA Top Shot), Yield Guild Games, Harmony, Alien Worlds, Star Atlas, and others. For more information: http://www.animocabrands.com.

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About True Global Ventures

TGV4 Plus Follow On Fund (TGV 4 Plus FoF) completed its first closing in June 2022 for US$146m. TGV 4 Plus FoF has 15 General Partners (GP) who lead the fund and its Investment Committee, investing more than US$62m of their money into the fund. This represents a total GP commitment of over 40% of the total fund size and over US$4m per GP on average.

TGV 4 Plus FoF focuses on investing a majority of its capital into selected TGV 4 Plus base fund companies. Existing portfolio companies include Animoca Brands, The Sandbox, Forge Global, Chromaway, Coinhouse, GCEX, Chronicled, Enjinstarter, Iomob and Dedoco. Portfolio companies leverage web3 technologies, incorporating blockchain as competitive advantages to drive change with proven products. TGV is a distributed fund with a presence in 20 cities, including Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Stockholm, Paris, Luxemburg, Madrid, Warsaw, New York, San Francisco, and Vancouver. For more information: http://www.tgv4plus.com.

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True Global Ventures 4 Plus Follow On Fund's First Investment is in web3 Leader Animoca Brands - Business Wire