Cloud computing has boosted quarterly financial results for Google parent Alphabet, Microsoft and Intel as businesses increasingly turn to cloud for a wide range of services.
Microsoft reported revenue of $24.1bn and profit of $5.2bn for the quarter ending 31 December 2016, an increase of 2% and 4% respectively compared with the same period a year ago.
Cloud-delivered software and services made significant contributions to the reportedly better-than-expected revenue and profit growth for the quarter.
The company’s intelligent cloud segment revenue grew 8% to $6.9bn, with server products and cloud services revenue up 12% and Azure revenue up 93%, while Azure compute usage more than doubled year-over-year.
Although the personal computing segment fell 5% to $11.
