Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) Ready to Invest in Brazil, TV

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has been known for investing in its community, the country and key strategic areas that benefit not only its own company but the tech sector and innovation in general. And Microsoft has announced that it will be investing in a couple of different areas – the burgeoning market of Brazil and a new cloud TV concept.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) announced this week that it will invest $100 million in research, development and startup companies being incubated in Brazil, one of the largest markets in Latin America. With the investment, Microsoft (MSFT) will open a new tech research lab in Rio de Janeiro, its fourth, along with a Bing search engine work center and an incubator for 15 startup companies over the next two years.

In another note, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) apparently is also investing in a cloud-based TV concept, as a Web site reported the sighting of a job opening listing from Redmond looking for a software engineering manager to work on “a new Cloud-based TV platform.” Although Microsoft (MSFT) bought Web TV a while back, it has really delved into television much, though it has tried. But now with the growth and establishment of Xbox as an entertainment vehicle in the living room, this may seem to be the next fairly logical step. It is interesting that Microsoft seems to be moving past the cable and broadband realm for this, while companies like Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) are currently struggling to get a handle on cable television and digital video streaming, both live and otherwise.

How far this will go, and whether Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) can be an innovator in the TV space will be interesting to watch in the coming months as this cloud TV idea is incubated. One could imagine that investors in Microsoft stock, like billionaire Seth Klarman of Baupost Group, will likely have a close eye on this R&D project, as well as the investment in Brazil to see if both will produce fruit that exceeds the investment.