The story behind Microsoft’s earnings: Our customers’ digital innovation in the cloud

By Judson Althoff
Executive Vice President, Worldwide Commercial Business, Microsoft

Today, Microsoft announced its first quarter earnings. One big takeaway is that we exceeded our goal to meet a $20 billion in commercial cloud annualized revenue run rate. This exciting milestone represents our continued delivery of new cloud technologies and our customers’ digital innovation. Across major industries — from finance and energy sector to retail and professional sports — organizations are betting on Microsoft to help them transform their customers’ experiences, employee productivity, operations and products. In fact, 96 percent of Fortune 500 companies have at least one of our cloud offerings, and 90 percent have at least two. I will share some of the product news and customer stories.

Last quarter, we shipped a range of cloud infrastructure and applications to give customers the foundation for new digital services. Our hybrid cloud solution, Azure Stack, is now available through hardware partners to help companies realize the benefits of an “intelligent cloud, intelligent edge.” We also introduced Azure Confidential Computing, an industry-first advancement in cloud security. Our differentiated hybrid cloud approach addresses the real-world needs of customers and is a key reason they are choosing to partner with Microsoft.