Articles about Azure

Microsoft’s next big thing for the cloud: an agent that keeps its cool when everything falls apart

Microsoft is promising relief to engineers who get woken up at 3 a.m. for outages and other cloud glitches: an… Read More

Tech Moves: Microsoft exec departs Azure; Xealth gets first CRO; Slalom names Pacific NW leader

Microsoft technical fellow and Azure Core CTO Marcus Fontura is departing; Xealth named its first CRO; and Slalom recruited a PNW lead from Accenture. Read More

Inside Microsoft’s Project Solara: A new platform for devices that run AI agents instead of apps

A team inside Microsoft has been quietly building a platform for devices that run AI agents instead of apps, based on Android instead of Windows. The first two concept devices, a desktop hub and a wearable badge, are headed to pilots with some big-name businesses. Read More

Microsoft’s CTO testifies about email at the heart of Elon Musk’s allegations against the tech giant

Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott publicly addressed for the first time a 2018 email that Musk’s lawyers have cited as evidence Microsoft knew OpenAI was abandoning its nonprofit mission. A confidential board memo filed in the case reveals how Microsoft’s fear of falling behind Google drove the investment. Read More

Podcast

Elon takes the stand, Big Tech drops big numbers, and a Seattle VC gets in on a billion-dollar deal

The GeekWire Podcast goes inside the Elon Musk trial against OpenAI and Microsoft, breaks down blockbuster earnings from Microsoft and Amazon, and tells the story of a tiny Seattle VC firm that hustled its way into a billion-dollar AI deal. Read More

Microsoft tops Wall Street expectations, reports accelerating Azure growth and $37B AI run rate

Microsoft’s Azure cloud business accelerated in the March quarter, growing 40% and topping the company’s own forecast, giving the tech giant a new answer to questions about its ability to translate record capital spending on AI infrastructure into stronger financial results. Read More

Microsoft and OpenAI revamp partnership, with trial in Elon Musk suit set to begin

Microsoft and OpenAI announced a major amendment to their partnership Monday, making Microsoft’s IP license non-exclusive and opening all OpenAI products to any cloud provider. It came just as jury selection began in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI, Altman, and Microsoft. Read More

Microsoft earnings preview: After a $357B wipeout, tech giant gets another chance

Microsoft reports fiscal Q3 results Wednesday. Here’s a preview of the key numbers, storylines, and context heading into the report, including Azure growth expectations, Copilot adoption, capital spending, and the organizational changes reshaping the company. Read More

Opinion: Whither Microsoft? A view from the neighborhood

A Sammamish, Wash.-based operations consultant who counts Microsoft employees as neighbors offers an outsider’s diagnosis of the tech giant’s cultural challenges — from internal politics dominating weekend conversations to H-1B anxiety chilling risk-taking. Read More

Seattle startup Glacis brings longtime Microsoft leader aboard to target AI’s biggest blind spot

Glacis, a Seattle startup building tamper-proof records of AI behavior, has hired longtime Microsoft Azure exec Rohit Tatachar as co-founder and CTO and is launching new open-source tools for monitoring and controlling AI agents. Read More

Mary Jo Foley: What the heck is going on with Microsoft lately?

In her debut column for GeekWire, longtime Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley digs into the recent wave of reorgs, hiring freezes, and leadership shakeups in Redmond, and asks whether it’s business as usual or something bigger. Read More

AWS at 20*: Inside the rise of Amazon’s cloud empire, and what’s at stake in the AI era

With Amazon marking the 20th anniversary of AWS this month, GeekWire spoke with early builders, current AWS insiders, and longtime observers of the company to tell the story of how the business got started, how it won the cloud, and what it’s up against now. Read More

Microsoft’s historic plunge: Why the company lost $357 billion in value despite strong results

Microsoft beat its own forecast. Revenue rose 17%. Cloud crossed $50 billion. So why did the stock fall 10%, erasing $357 billion in market value? We dig into the numbers behind the company’s worst post-earnings drop in 13 years. Read More

Podcast

GeekWire Field Trip: Starbucks rebounds, Microsoft slides, and Amazon resets

This week on the GeekWire Podcast: We hit the road for a driving tour of the week’s news, making stops… Read More

Microsoft beats expectations, cloud tops $50B as OpenAI and Anthropic deals reshape its business

Microsoft’s big financial bet on artificial intelligence got even bigger in the December quarter, but it also showed continued signs… Read More

Microsoft unveils Maia 200 AI chip, claiming performance edge over Amazon and Google

Microsoft says its new Maia 200 chip outperforms Amazon’s and Google’s latest AI silicon on key benchmarks. The chip is already running Copilot and GPT-5.2 in production. Read More

The Microsoft-OpenAI Files: Internal documents reveal the realities of AI’s defining alliance

Internal emails, texts, slide decks, and deposition testimony show how Microsoft went from being sidelined at OpenAI’s founding to wielding decisive influence over the AI lab that launched the generative AI era — and how that power is now being tested as OpenAI emerges as a platform company with leverage of its own. Read More

Microsoft debuts Copilot Checkout, joining AI shopping race vs. Amazon, Google and OpenAI

Microsoft is rolling out a new “Copilot Checkout” feature that lets shoppers complete purchases directly inside its AI chatbot, betting that its enterprise ties and retailer relationships can help it compete with OpenAI, Google and Amazon in the race toward AI-driven commerce. Read More

Filing: Human rights proposals win more than 25% of votes at Microsoft shareholder meeting

Two human rights proposals at Microsoft’s annual shareholder meeting drew support from more than a quarter of voting shares — far more than any other shareholder proposals this year. Read More

30 years after Microsoft went ‘all-in’ on the internet, the tech giant’s AI strategy echoes the past

Thirty years after Bill Gates declared Microsoft was going “all-in” on the internet, echoes of that moment are resurfacing in the company’s sweeping AI push. The parallels — and the differences — reveal how Microsoft is navigating another era-defining shift. Read More

Microsoft to invest $5B in Anthropic, as Claude maker commits $30B to Azure in new Nvidia alliance

The frenzy of AI deals and cloud partnerships reached another zenith Tuesday morning as Microsoft, Nvidia, and Anthropic announced a surprise alliance that includes a $5 billion investment by Microsoft in Anthropic — which, in turn, committed to spend at least $30 billion on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. Read More

Inside Microsoft’s new ‘Experience Center One’: What we learned at the edge of the AI frontier

In the glowing demo rooms of Microsoft’s new Experience Center One, the company is making a high-stakes pitch for the potential of AI agents — attempting to get businesses on board with its vision of the future. Read More

Microsoft beats expectations, reports nearly $35B in Q1 capital spending amid Azure outage

Microsoft reported revenue and profits ahead of analysts’ expectations, with Azure revenue growth climbing to 40% as the company continued to grapple with the effects of a widespread cloud outage. Read More

Microsoft’s Azure reports cloud outage, disrupting global customers including Alaska Airlines

An outage on Microsoft’s Azure cloud services Wednesday morning disrupted operations for customers worldwide including Alaska Airlines, Xbox users and 365 subscribers. Read More

Microsoft cuts off Israeli military’s access to tech that was reportedly used in Palestinian surveillance

The move by the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant is in response to an Aug. 6 report by The Guardian, which revealed how Microsoft Azure was being used to store and process millions of Palestinian civilian phone calls made each day in Gaza and the West Bank. Read More

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