Dive Brief:

• Thursday, at Microsoft's Build developer conference in San Francisco, the company unveiled Azure Functions, a service that allows developers to create event triggers in languages including  Java, Python, C# and php. 
• The service—not unlike Amazon Web Services' Lamda—is open source, which allows developers to work in almost any cloud environment, from Azure to the private or hybrid cloud. 
• Designed with the Internet of Things in mind, the service allows developers and programmers to deploy small, serverless apps without dictating storage or required computing resources.

Dive Insight:

At Build 2016, Wednesday was all about bots and Windows 10, but on Thursday the cloud took center stage. Boasting of Azure's growth, Microsoft said it is adding 120,000 new business customers and developer subscribers per month. The company also said it has 4 million developers registered to use its developer tools.

Developer tools are one of the ways competitors bait customers into using their services. Last week, for example, Google launched new artificial intelligence-based tools and products for its cloud platform. The tools will allow data scientists and developers to build intelligent applications and employ deep learning techniques. 

AWS, Microsoft, IBM and Google are competing to dominate the cloud market. Last year, Amazon held 31% of the cloud market. Microsoft, IBM and Google each held 9%, 7% and 4%, respectively. But Google is ramping up its efforts, with plans to open 12 new data centers in the next 12 to 18 months and showcasing its big-name customers, like Coca Cola and Home Depot. 

Last year, Amazon brought in $8 billion in cloud revenue. You can bet that Microsoft and Google are going to continue their push to take a larger part of the market.