Microsoft might be the first to publicly announce it, but I don't think they are the only blue chip company aware of the industry. I've heard Phillip-Morris has been quietly buying out a lot of farms, anticipating federal legalization in the near future, especially since tobacco usage in the US is plummeting.
Do you have any source on that? The only reason I ask is I've heard that rumor many times over the years. In particular I had a civics teach in high school tell me how as a student he had gone on a tour of a Phillip-Morris (or some major tobacco company) facility and supposedly was told that they were amassing equipment to make Marijuana cigarettes because they thought it was going to be legal in a few years. Seeing how the man was in his late 50s that story has been going around for a while.
Philip Morris is a pretty big company with a lot of resources. It could just be a long term strategy that they understand might be necessary in the future and spend a small amount on each year to maintain.
Salesforce has several partners offering marijuana growing management software - through a branded resale of the SFDC platform, so $CRM is definitely in it.
This is not true. It's possible, perhaps probable, that Phillip-Morris employees have invested personally in the industry, but all retail states so far have strict domesticity requirements that no national corporation could satisfy. Colorado's even contemplating a law that forbids publicly traded companies from owning stakes in a licensed entity. But even if this weren't the case, it would make zero business sense for a heavily regulated, multi-billion dollar corporation to invest resources in marijuana right now. The revenue opportunity wouldn't register on their income statement, and would never come close to justifying the additional scrutiny they'd surely receive from regulators. The reasonable strategy for them is to wait until marijuana receives federal blessing and then acquire the best companies or teams available, or try to launch new products backed by massive marketing spend.