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Microsoft now has another business division that generates over $1 billion in annual revenue. That division is the Windows Azure cloud service business, and that $1 billion number also includes sales of software for third party companies to create their own Windows-based cloud service.
Microsoft revealed the numbers in a new article on Bloomberg today, and added that, according to Microsoft vice-president Takeshi Numoto, subscriptions for Windows Azure have gone up 48 percent in the last six months. James Staten, an analyst at Forrester, claims that Microsoft now is in charge of 20 percent of all cloud-based businesses. Staten predicts that within a year, Microsoft will take up 35 percent of the cloudservice market share, as it eats away at its main rival Amazon, which currently controls 71 percent of the market.
As ZDNet points out, Windows Azure is now part of a group of about a dozen or so divisions at Microsoft that bring in $1 billion or more a year in revenue. Those businesses include the Windows, Xbox, Office, and Dynamics sections of the company, among others. The Office 365 division could reach the $1 billion revenue club in the next few months, as it continues to add customers to its own cloud services.
Source: Bloomberg
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