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The clouds are parting.
Robust growth in Microsoft’s cloud computing application manager, Azure, buoyed the tech giant’s strong first quarter, even as it works to integrate AI to patch flaws in the platform.
Microsoft reported that Azure grew 29% last quarter, above expectations of 26% growth. The company’s AI growth and the opportunity for developers to use the Azure platform add to the appeal.
Get the money. Company CEO Satya Nadella told investors during an earnings call Oct. 24 that Microsoft is “rapidly infusing AI across every layer of the tech stack and for every role of business process to drive productivity gains for our customers.”
“Azure, again, took share as organizations [brought] their workloads to our cloud,” Nadella said. “Because of our overall differentiation, more than 18,000 organizations now use Azure OpenAI service, including new-to-Azure customers.”
In the wake of the earnings report, Microsoft’s share price rose 5%.
“While a single quarter doesn’t a major trend make, this quarter’s cloud results...suggest that Azure is gaining share against its competition," Technalysis Research chief analyst Bob O'Donnell told Reuters.
Check ya neck. But for all of Azure’s success, the platform has had its growing pains. A security vulnerability in the cloud system forced the tech conglomerate to overhaul its security protocols and try to integrate AI to identify flaws.
It’s part of what Microsoft is calling the Secure Future Initiative, a new approach to cloud cybersecurity intended to reverse the deficiencies of the company’s previous software development. Using AI to identify and flag vulnerabilities is part of the approach.
New Azure protocols will be “active out of the box,” Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told staffers in a November 2 memo.
“We will implement our Azure tenant baseline controls (99 controls across nine security domains) by default across our internal tenants automatically,” Smith wrote. “This will reduce engineering time spent on configuration management, ensure the highest security bar, and provide an adaptive model where we add capability based on new operational learning and emerging adversary threats.”