Azure’s Success Shows Microsoft Gaining Ground in Cloud Computing

Grazed from eWeek. Author: Eric Lundquist.

Microsoft gets a lot of justified blame for faltering in smartphones and tablets. However, while the company has a long way to go to catch up in mobile, it is playing a very strong catch-up game in cloud computing. Last week the company touted its cloud success in its quarterly analyst call, published a memo outlining a raft of new features and made an acquisition that didn’t get a whole lot of media play, but will buttress the company’s plan to be an easy on-ramp to the cloud and to deliver applications developed by tying together API-based services.

The company’s Azure cloud service has been enjoying triple digit growth, and the cloud computing unit (which also includes the Microsoft Office 365 line) grew at 103 percent in the past quarter, company officials said during its analyst call last week. Both Azure and Office 365 posted triple-digit increases. Last spring the company said Azure and related cloud software account for $1 billion in yearly revenue…

The company does not break out Azure revenues as a separate item, which is also true of Amazon Web Services. Although Microsoft trails Amazon in the cloud segment, the company has continued to improve since the Azure introduction in 2008…

Read more from the source @ http://www.eweek.com/cloud/azures-success-shows-microsoft-gaining-ground-in-cloud-computing.html