Microsoft owns the Azure cloud platform and is headquartered in Redmond, Washington.
Microsoft Azure is a large cloud-computing platform that provides computing power, storage, databases, networking, analytics, and artificial-intelligence services. Organizations use Azure to run applications and manage data without owning all the physical infrastructure themselves.
Microsoft was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. The company became famous for software such as MS-DOS and Windows, then broadened into enterprise services, gaming through Xbox, productivity software through Microsoft 365, and cloud computing through Azure.
Azure helped transform Microsoft’s business model from one centered mainly on packaged software licenses to one increasingly based on recurring cloud subscriptions and services. Amazon Web Services is a major competitor, and Oracle and Google also provide cloud platforms. Microsoft’s market capitalization has benefited from the scale and recurring revenue of this wider technology portfolio.