Microsoft operates the Azure cloud platform and became a public company in 1986.
Microsoft Azure is the company's cloud-computing platform, offering infrastructure, databases, analytics, artificial-intelligence tools, and other services. Microsoft launched Azure commercially in 2010, first calling it Windows Azure before adopting the shorter name.
Microsoft's initial public offering took place on March 13, 1986. The IPO helped finance the company's expansion as personal computers became widespread and Microsoft software became central to business computing.
Azure is one reason Microsoft is regularly included among companies with the largest market capitalizations. A market-cap ranking measures investor valuation, not the amount of cloud data stored or the number of products sold. Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud are major competitors, so a question about cloud platforms must distinguish Azure from those services.