In the last 12 months annual revenues for Azure have topped a billion dollars according to Curt Anderson, CFO of Microsoft’s Server and Tools unit where Azure is housed.
It’s the first time the Microsoft cloud has hit this storied height and suddenly people are talking about it being in the running against Amazon Web Services, which is believed to have done $1.8 billion last year on its eventual way to $20 billion sometime before the decade ends.
Microsoft needs Azure to click in case the bottom continues to fall out of the Windows OS market.
Forrester told Bloomberg that Azure has roughly 20% of the cloud market to Amazon’s 71%. And it thinks Azure may have 35% in the next year, doubling annually from here on out.
It said, “Microsoft probably has more net new growth opportunity sitting in front of them than probably anyone in the market.”