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Microsoft Vs. Oracle: Massive Backlog Fortunes With Vastly Different Risk Profiles

Microsoft and Oracle each reported record backlogs, $678 billion in commercial RPO for Microsoft and $664 billion for Oracle, but the funding behind them differs. Microsoft's fiscal Q4 revenue rose 17.8% to $90.01 billion and free cash flow reached $19.64 billion, with nearly 90% of Microsoft Cloud revenue coming from customers outside the frontier model companies. Oracle's $28.50 billion of capex pushed free cash flow to -$5.40 billion, interest expense rose 55% to $1.4 billion, and it completed a $20 billion at-the-market stock sale, while its CFO did not give a timeframe for positive free cash flow. Oracle shares fell 54.35% over the past year and trade at about 18x forward earnings versus 25x for Microsoft. The author says they prefer Microsoft for its diversified revenue and positive cash flow, while Oracle carries more uncertainty.

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MarketUS stocks
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Close on 10/23/2026524.53
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