Azure leads the charge as Microsoft continues its resurgence

Microsoft has put in another solid performance with quarterly revenues standing at $24.7 billion, a 9% boost year-on-year, and full-year revenues of $89.95 billion.

While the More Personal Computing, which for devices and gaming etc., declined once again, the success of the more potent business units more than accounted for the dredge over the quarter. The Productivity and Business Processes unit grew 21% to $8.4 billion, while revenues for Intelligent Cloud was $7.4 billion, a boost of 11%.

And when you look at the full-year, these numbers start to get very big. Productivity and Business Processes brought in $30.444 billion and Intelligent Cloud was $27.44 billion. Total operating income for the year was $22.326 billion, quite a nice return.

“Our technology world view of an Intelligent Cloud and an Intelligent Edge is resonating with businesses everywhere,” said CEO Satya Nadella. “Every customer I talk to is looking for both innovative technology to drive new growth, as well as a strategic partner who can help build their own digital capability.”

Cloud was once again the poster boy for the Microsoft team, as the Azure proposition grew a staggering 97% year-on-year, now present in 40 regions globally. While the cloud sector on the whole will continue to grow as more customers open themselves to the digital economy, the sustained growth which is being demonstrated by Microsoft is quite impressive.

Many might have assumed that the mass market penetration of cloud would erode the dominance of the major players in the segment, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. That has been the trend with other technologies, which have seen alternative disruptors enter the market once it has become normalized, however no-one seems to be able to close the gap which has been created between Microsoft, AWS and Google (possibly IBM as well) and the chasing pack.

We mentioned this before, but the turnaround at Microsoft under Nadella with cloud as the catalyst is really something special. Certain organizations have been trying to reinvent themselves for the connected era for years with little or no success, but Microsoft has nailed it. It might still have the personal computing business unit which made it famous in years gone, but don’t be fooled; this is a completely different beast with an massive appetite for the digital economy.