Microsoft reaffirms its Confidence in Cloud Services

Microsoft has affirmed its confidence in cloud services, the latest affirmation was made at Microsoft Cloud Roadshow recently held in Dubai. The company said the Internet is not some place in distant cyberspace, it is a place that defines what happens in the real world.

Microsoft said it is empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. To do this, it said there is also the need to protect every person and to ensure every individual and organization has the ability to use technology that they can trust.

Delivering the keynote address, James Phillips, corporate vice president and the general manager of Microsoft’s business applications, platform and intelligence (BAPI) organization, spoke on how Microsoft’s cloud services and how Microsoft Azure, the company’s growing collection of integrated cloud services – analytics, computing, database, mobile, networking, storage and web – is helping its users to move faster, achieve more and save money.

“We believe Microsoft’s enterprise experience and approach to the cloud addresses customers’ needs in a differentiated way. Our unique approach to the cloud spans three areas that, when combined, give customers the most choice and flexibility with the cloud: enterprise capabilities, hyper-scale cloud infrastructure, and comprehensive hybrid solutions,” he said.

He revealed that Windows 10 is empowering people to do great things with innovations like Microsoft Edge, Windows Hello and a new Windows store with great apps.

He said: “Windows 10 is now active on more than 200 million devices around the world. Windows 10 continues to be on the fastest growth trajectory of any version of Windows – ever – outpacing Windows 7 by nearly 140% and Windows 8 by nearly 400%.

“People have spent over 11 billion hours on Windows 10 in December alone, spending more time on Windows than ever before. The latest second-quarter FY16 financial results show that Microsoft continues to see positive momentum for Windows 10 with over 200 million active devices. The goal is still to reach one billion Windows 10 active devices in fiscal year 2018.

“Business customers are moving faster to Windows 10 than we have seen in any previous release. More than 76% of our enterprise customers are in active pilots of Windows 10, and we now have over 22 million devices running Windows 10 across enterprise and education customers.”

Phillips’ position on the impacts of Microsoft’s products and services is similar to that of Brad Smith, Microsoft president and chief legal officer. In an in-depth piece about the changing global landscape of information security, he said everyone “want and need to live in a world where governments can keep the public safe, and yet privacy and free expression are among the timeless values that also need to endure. We all need to live in a world where governments respect each other’s borders, but also a world with open markets and a global network. Certain principles span all of this, principles like transparency. The more that we can share, the more we can help advance all of these principles.”

The Internet “does need to be governed by laws – but they need to be good laws,”

According to Smith, the Internet “does need to be governed by laws – but they need to be good laws,” Smith says. “That is where our principles turn to commitments we have to governments, businesses and individuals.”

At the Microsoft Cloud Roadshow, the company said it believes that its enterprise experience and approach to the cloud addresses customers’ needs in a differentiated way.

enterprise experience and approach to the cloud addresses customers’ needs in a differentiated way.

“Our unique approach to the cloud spans three areas that, when combined, give customers the most choice and flexibility with the cloud: enterprise capabilities, hyper-scale cloud infrastructure, and comprehensive hybrid solutions,” it said.

Microsoft said it is bringing the benefits of cloud speed, scale and economics to everyone – no matter what platform they are on, or what cloud environment they choose.

“Whether providing customers the tools to solve business problems at cloud scale or helping customers maximize their IT investments through our hybrid solutions, we are committed to providing customers with the most complete, intelligent cloud to transform their business,” it said.

It revealed it is working with governments and industry groups, to build security-rich controls into its solutions to help users to communicate, collaborate, and do business in the cloud with confidence.

“It’s the practices and principles we live by to protect you in a mobile-first, cloud-first world and build trust in the cloud ecosystem. Because trust is critical, and it has to be earned,” the company stated.