Or to ramp up efforts in cybersecurity, Microsoft pre-acquired Mandiant

U.S. Stock Research Agency news, Sina Technology News On the morning of February 9, Beijing time, according to reports, informed sources said that Microsoft is preparing to acquire network security company Mandiant, which is still in the negotiation stage.

Mandiant, a company valued at about $3.6 billion and focused on cyber incident response and cybersecurity testing, will be Microsoft's second deal in a month. In January, Microsoft announced its intention to acquire video game developer Activision for nearly $69 billion.

Why might Microsoft buy Mandiant? Bank of America analyst Brad Sills previously said Microsoft's Azure cloud business is a special area of growth as many companies are increasingly migrating large workloads to the Azure platform. If Microsoft buys Mandiant, a cybersecurity research company, it can improve the quality of its products and help protect customers from hackers and intrusions.

In addition, last August, Microsoft's CEO was invited to the White House to discuss cybersecurity. Subsequently, the company's executives said on Twitter that Microsoft promised to invest $20 billion over five years to provide more advanced cybersecurity tools. The acquisition could help Microsoft better deliver on that promise.

On the back of the news, both Mandiant and Microsoft shares rose, with the former up 17.86% and the latter up 1.20% as of the U.S. stock close on Feb. 8.