Microsoft Rises From Irrelevance With Big Bet on Cloud

Microsoft, which not too long ago was facing irrelevance, is successfully riding the cloud to reestablish itself and brighten it prospects. A deep dive into the company by MTN Consulting — one of eight “Webscale Playbook” company assessments — finds that Microsoft has made great progress reorienting itself around Azure and subscription services. The company also has diversified and is plowing money, research, and development into artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, and networking, the report says. The current dynamic is shaped by Azure. The company has 54 Azure cloud regions, more than 130 edge node locations, and adds more than 120,000 subscriptions each month. Microsoft interconnects all these pieces — and serves up Xbox Live and other online services — via 70,000 miles of fiber and submarine cable systems.