Microsoft Corp. said continued strength in its cloud-computing business helped deliver strong first-quarter earnings growth. The Redmond, Wash., company has enjoyed a strong period of higher earnings, in part because of Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella’s bet on cloud computing, a model where customers rent computing power instead of buying their own machines. Its focus on the cloud has helped turn Microsoft into the third company to hit a $1 trillion valuation. 1 company in cloud computing by sales. Brad Reback, an analyst at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. said Microsoft earnings were strong “across the board.” Though Azure’s sales have slowed, Mr. Reback said the company’s performance was impressive with Microsoft’s growth outpacing that of Amazon’s cloud service at a comparable point.

Source: Wall Street Journal October 23, 2019 20:42 UTC