Welcome to the Cloud Wars Minute — your daily cloud news and commentary show. Each episode provides insights and perspectives around the “reimagination machine” that is the cloud.
This episode is sponsored by Acceleration Economy’s “Cloud Wars Top 10 Course,” which explains how Bob Evans builds and updates the Cloud Wars Top 10 ranking, as well as how C-suite executives use the list to inform strategic cloud purchase decisions. The course is available today.
In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I examine Microsoft’s Q1 earnings and the role its new partnership with Oracle played.
Highlights
00:21 — I’ve pulled two shockers out of Microsoft’s whole report. One is the staggering size of its business and the growth rate it experienced in fiscal Q1, which ended September 30. The other is Satya Nadella tying the Azure growth to Oracle, which is sometimes a partner, sometimes a competitor.
00:53 — Absolutely stunning performance by Microsoft with cloud revenue of $31.8 billion, up 24%. It’s come up with something that’s just truly remarkable here for the first quarter. The very first analyst question was, “Where is this Azure growth coming from? What are customers doing?”
01:53 — Satya Nadella said there are three reasons. The very first he mentioned was this deal with Oracle. Larry Ellison had outlined a new, extended multi-cloud partnership that Oracle and Microsoft have called Oracle Database@Azure. That announcement was made September 14.
03:33 — So, 16 or 17 days, and already it had this massive financial impact for Microsoft. In the opener, I said, “Are you going to create your own future or live in a future where somebody else has dictated the rules?” Nadella and Ellison stepped forth and helped to create their own futures and for their customers, by creating this partnership.
04:15 — I think we’re going to see a lot more of this sort of breakthrough behavior, really recognizing that the policies, technologies, stances, and competitive dynamics that got us here are not going to get us to the next level.
04:54 — To all of the other eight Cloud Wars Top 10 CEOs, I would say there was a great lesson here in what Nadella and Ellison did, and Microsoft has truly capitalized on it in an extraordinary way in their first fiscal quarter.
