http://gigaom.com/2011/06/10/apple-icloud-microsoft-azure-amazon/ http://gigaom.com/2011/06/10/apple-icloud-microsoft-azure-am... This article from GigaOm expl

http://gigaom.com/2011/06/10/apple-icloud-microsoft-azure-amazon/ http://gigaom.com/2011/06/10/apple-icloud-microsoft-azure-am... This article from GigaOm explains it better - Apple is likely using Azure / AWS as a CDN, because their data centers are centrally located (however this is not fact - we still don't know the extent to which they leverage azure / aws) I think its a win-win for everyone involved - Azure makes money, and bags a high profile customer which validates their platform. Apple can leverage Azure's distributed datacenters to deliver a great experience for their users. If this is true, I wouldn't say that it was embarrassing for Microsoft - much like how Google Maps on the iPhone is valuable asset for Google , not an embarrassment.