Microsoft owns Azure and became the second U.S. company valued above $3 trillion.
Azure is Microsoft’s cloud-computing platform, providing computing power, storage, databases, networking, analytics, and artificial-intelligence services. It competes with Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud and has become a central part of Microsoft’s business strategy.
Microsoft’s market capitalization briefly exceeded $3 trillion in January 2024, after Apple had reached that level first. Market capitalization is calculated by multiplying a company’s share price by its shares outstanding, so it changes as the stock market moves.
Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975. Its earlier success came from software such as MS-DOS and Windows, while later growth was driven by Office, cloud services, gaming, and enterprise products. The company is headquartered in Redmond, Washington.