2, behind Amazon, in this market for the foundation layer of cloud technology. Corporate customers, analysts say, often want more than one cloud supplier as they move to cloud technology — a trend that helps Microsoft. Microsoft’s broader commercial cloud division, which includes Azure and customer and operations management software for corporations, grew by 58 percent. The cloud transition is changing the company’s business model to one with a rising share of steady, recurring revenue from cloud subscriptions rather than traditional software sales. The company’s share price slipped by 1 percent in after-hours trading on Thursday, after gaining 2 percent during the regular session.

Source: New York Times April 26, 2018 21:43 UTC