Dive Brief:
- Scott Guthrie, Microsoft's executive vice president of Cloud and Enterprise, says Microsoft's hybrid approach to cloud services and its early investments in IoT are major differentiators that appeal to enterprise customers, according to a ZDNet report of the Deutsche Bank Technology Conference.
- Microsoft is gaining on Amazon Web Service, with more than 120,000 new Azure subscriptions each month and 1.6 million production databases now hosted in Azure, according to Guthrie.
- Guthrie said the company also hosts more than 2 trillion IoT messages each week.
Dive Insight:
The focus of the cloud wars appear to be shifting from price to IoT and the future of technology offerings. Microsoft offers a number of Azure-hosted IoT services, having made its IoT service available last year. The company believes getting into IoT is now paying off as it gains on primary cloud rival AWS. The company’s latest results indicate they may be making some headway.
In July, revenue in Microsoft’s overall cloud business, including its Azure cloud platform and server software, rose 7% year over year in the fourth quarter to $6.7 billion. Azure, saw revenue more than double this quarter, growing 102% year over year.
Now, rather than embarking on a vicious price war, Microsoft is more concerned about value and being able to offer a higher level of service. That includes new capabilities and appealing to companies across sectors, such as its new deal with Boeing.
