Cloud has led the Microsoft recovery in recent years, and the Azure team is doubling down on that momentum with a third acquisition in as many months.

The financial details of the deal have not been revealed, though Movere will join the Microsoft Azure family, adding migration smarts to an already comprehensive armoury.

“As cloud growth continues to unlock opportunities for our customers, cloud migration is increasingly important for business’s digital strategy,” said Jeremy Winter Partner Director for Microsoft Azure. “Today, I am pleased to announce that Microsoft has acquired Movere, an innovative technology provider in the cloud migration space.”

Founded in 2008 as Unified Logic, the focus of the business was altered in 2014 after the management team experienced difficulties in migrating their business onto the Azure platform. The start-up has been a partner of Microsoft for more than a decade, though in the last five years, it has been more acutely focusing on migration challenges for customers.

For Microsoft, this is just another tool it can talk to potential customers about, adding to two acquisitions over the last couple of weeks.

In July, the Azure team announced the acquisition of BlueTalon, a firm which aims to simplify data privacy and governance across modern data estates. Just after in August, jClarity was added to the mix. jClarity, a leading contributor to the AdoptOpenJDK project, will help teams at Microsoft to leverage advancements in the Java platform.

Alongside Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure is leading the pack in the cloud world and it does not want to give any opportunity for the ‘also rans’ to close the gap. These acquisitions are simply increasing the breadth, depth and variety of the Azure proposition.

And the importance of the cloud to Microsoft should never be under-estimated.

After joining the Microsoft in 2014, CEO Satya Nadella shifted the focus of the business towards the cloud. Azure was the new poster boy of the firm, which was looking like a shadow of the dominant player which dominated the 90s and 00s.

Since that point, total revenues have grown to $110.36 billion in 2018, from $86.833 billion in 2014. Operating income increased to $35.058 billion in 2018, up from $27.759 billion in 2018. And looking at market capitalisation, Microsoft is now valued at $1.05 trillion, the largest in the technology world.

The cloud is driving Microsoft forward, and it is not afraid to spend some cash to capitalise on the momentum.