That $1B nummer includes software sales to Amazon, Rackspace etc so it's not really comparable to Amazon (which also lumps AWS together with other stuff). Gene

That $1B nummer includes software sales to Amazon, Rackspace etc so it's not really comparable to Amazon (which also lumps AWS together with other stuff). Generally though I find it interesting that there is almost no mention of it either here on HN or other places. When AWS has an outage, everyone notice because lots of high profile sites and services go down. Azure has had a few outages and we've barely heard about it. I think the difference now in the new markets is that Microsoft has talented competitors, including Google which has copied the strategy you mention with the twist if giving their software away for free.