This is a big week for earnings reports from some of our region’s biggest companies.
Microsoft investors will be watching to see if the company’s gaining ground in cloud computing against a rival right here in the neighborhood.
Amazon is the leader in cloud computing. That’s where businesses tap into big server farms run by the likes of Microsoft or Amazon instead of buying their own machines. It’s a fast-growing business and Amazon’s had the edge, but there’s still plenty of time, says Rob Helm, managing vice president with the research firm Directions On Microsoft.
“Companies are still in the process of deciding ‘what can we reasonably move to cloud computing services and outsource?’ versus, ‘what do we need to keep in house because we need it to compete?”
In the summer, Microsoft said that its commercial cloud revenue jumped 88 percent in the June quarter. Amazon said sales from its cloud services climbed 81 percent. On Thursday, we’ll hear from both companies if they’ve been able to keep up that rapid growth.
