Cloud Tech - GeekWire

Microsoft and Oracle, frenemies at last: What others can learn from their unlikely partnership

by Todd Bishop on October 3, 2023October 3, 2023 at 12:48 pm

“All partnerships are tactical. There is no such thing as a strategic partnership.” That’s one of the lessons that business and technology leader Bob Muglia tells the companies he works… Read More

Cloud startup Pulumi raises $41M from Madrona, NEA to grow ‘infrastructure as code’ platform

by Taylor Soper on October 3, 2023October 3, 2023 at 10:49 am

Seattle startup Pulumi landed $41 million as it looks to boost its leadership position in the infrastructure as code market and invest in new AI-fueled products. Madrona Venture Group, which… Read More

Amazon pours up to $4B into AI startup Anthropic, escalating rivalry with Microsoft and Google

by Todd Bishop on September 25, 2023September 25, 2023 at 7:36 am

Amazon will invest up to $4 billion and take a minority stake in Anthropic, the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company founded two years ago by former OpenAI executives and considered… Read More

News Brief

Amazon Web Services acquires Fig, a YC grad that boosts the command line for devs

by Taylor Soper on August 28, 2023August 28, 2023 at 9:46 am

Amazon Web Services has acquired Fig, a small San Francisco-based startup that helps developers be more efficient and collaborative while using the command line.

Amazon’s cloud business and AI initiatives in the spotlight in advance of earnings report

by Todd Bishop on August 1, 2023August 1, 2023 at 12:02 pm

Amazon’s cloud revenue growth rate and its artificial intelligence initiatives will be closely scrutinized when the company reports second-quarter earnings Thursday afternoon, Aug. 3. Wall Street analysts expect the company… Read More

Google Cloud posts second straight profitable quarter on 28% revenue growth

by Todd Bishop on July 25, 2023July 25, 2023 at 3:43 pm

Google Cloud boosted its operating profits to $395 million for the second quarter, a improvement of close to $1 billion from its loss of $590 million in the same quarter… Read More

Chinese hacking group exploited multiple Microsoft flaws to access U.S. government email accounts

by Todd Bishop on July 14, 2023July 14, 2023 at 4:14 pm

Microsoft is providing new details about the techniques used by a Chinese hacking group to infiltrate the email accounts of an estimated 25 organizations and government agencies, reportedly including the… Read More

Former Amazon Web Services data center leader Chris Vonderhaar joins Google Cloud

by Todd Bishop on July 12, 2023July 12, 2023 at 7:43 am

Chris Vonderhaar, a longtime Amazon Web Services executive who left the company this spring, has joined AWS rival Google Cloud. Vonderhaar started at Google Cloud this week with the title… Read More

Amazon looks to boost generative AI projects with new $100M cloud initiative

by Todd Bishop on June 22, 2023June 22, 2023 at 10:59 am

Amazon Web Services says it will invest $100 million in a new initiative to connect its machine learning and artificial intelligence experts with customers and partners to encourage and accelerate… Read More

Amazon confirms abrupt departure of AWS data center chief Chris Vonderhaar

by Todd Bishop on May 30, 2023May 30, 2023 at 4:51 pm

The Amazon Web Services executive who oversaw the cloud giant’s massive network of data centers is suddenly gone, without explanation. Amazon confirmed the departure of Chris Vonderhaar, who had been… Read More

What Microsoft’s numbers say about the state of the tech economy

by Todd Bishop on January 25, 2023January 25, 2023 at 9:44 am

Things really began to change in December. That’s when Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform started to lose some of its momentum, experiencing “moderated consumption growth,” in the words of Amy Hood,… Read More

Video

Microsoft’s ‘multibillion dollar’ OpenAI investment comes with new level of secrecy

by Todd Bishop on January 23, 2023January 23, 2023 at 9:20 am

Microsoft is making a big new investment in OpenAI, the artificial intelligence powerhouse behind ChatGPT, extending a partnership that has the potential to reshape some of its biggest products. The… Read More

Video

ChatGPT coming to Azure: New integration shows how Microsoft will leverage OpenAI partnership

by Todd Bishop on January 17, 2023January 17, 2023 at 10:32 am

Having trouble reliably accessing OpenAI’s ChatGPT? Microsoft has a solution. The tech giant says it will soon make the generative AI chat technology available as part of its Azure OpenAI… Read More

Pentagon splits giant cloud contract among Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle

by Todd Bishop on December 7, 2022December 7, 2022 at 10:09 pm

Correction: This story previously misstated the total value of the contracts. The U.S. Department of Defense awarded cloud contracts with a combined potential value of up to $9 billion to… Read More

Amazon Web Services pitches customers on cloud savings, makes bigger push into applications

by Todd Bishop on November 29, 2022November 29, 2022 at 1:44 pm

Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky made his pitch to businesses to double down on the company’s cloud technologies, and made it clear that Amazon’s own ambitions increasingly extend well… Read More

What to expect at re:Invent: Amazon Web Services navigates uncertain economic times

by Todd Bishop on November 28, 2022November 28, 2022 at 10:58 am

Amazon Web Services will face a new challenge at its annual re:Invent conference in Las Vegas this week: keeping software developers and big corporate customers engaged with the long-term potential… Read More

How the economy is hitting the Amazon and Microsoft clouds, and what they’re doing about it

by Todd Bishop on October 28, 2022November 3, 2022 at 12:22 pm

After soaring during the pandemic, the cloud is getting dragged down by the economy, and both of the Seattle region’s tech giants are feeling the impact. Microsoft said its Azure… Read More

Full text: Microsoft’s multi-cloud vision would keep Amazon from running away with federal deals

by Todd Bishop on July 28, 2022July 28, 2022 at 11:00 am

A draft document circulated by Microsoft calls for the use of multiple cloud vendors as “the de facto standard for US Government Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as… Read More

M1 Macs in the cloud: Amazon Web Services releases upgraded Mac EC2 instances

by Todd Bishop on July 7, 2022July 7, 2022 at 5:58 pm

Amazon Web Services is doubling down on the latest Apple technologies with the general availability of its EC2 M1 Mac instances, an upgrade of its service that gives developers access… Read More

Video

Microsoft ‘Entra’ launch renews push for decentralized ID and cross-cloud permissions

by Todd Bishop on May 31, 2022May 31, 2022 at 9:40 am

Microsoft is rebranding its identity and access products under the name “Entra,” and rolling out a decentralized system to verify online identities, confirm permissions and grant user access. The company… Read More

Microsoft changes cloud practices in Europe, acknowledges missteps in rivalry with Amazon

by Todd Bishop on May 18, 2022May 18, 2022 at 10:55 am

Microsoft responded to criticism of its cloud licensing policies in Europe with a series of promises to change its licensing practices and overall principles to level the playing field for… Read More

Microsoft earnings preview: Wall Street expects 18% revenue growth on continued cloud strength

by Todd Bishop on April 25, 2022April 25, 2022 at 8:33 am

Streaming video subscriptions might be more disposable than imagined, but the juggernaut of cloud infrastructure and enterprise services is another matter entirely. That’s the underlying theory behind Wall Street’s expectation… Read More

Amazon, Google or Microsoft? Boeing chooses all of the above for cloud computing services

by Alan Boyle on April 6, 2022April 6, 2022 at 4:10 pm

The billion-dollar competition to provide Boeing with cloud computing services is finished, and the winner is … a three-way split. Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft are all getting… Read More

Amazon halts AWS cloud signups in Russia and Belarus; existing customers not impacted

by Todd Bishop on March 8, 2022March 9, 2022 at 7:15 am

Amazon has stopped taking on new cloud customers in Russia and Belarus, escalating its response to the invasion of Ukraine, but stopping short of cutting off cloud services in the… Read More

Analyst: Only a matter of time before U.S. cloud companies shut off services in Russia

by Taylor Soper on March 5, 2022March 5, 2022 at 8:44 am

A flurry of tech companies — including Amazon, Microsoft, and Google — are halting sales of services and products in Russia in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine and… Read More

F5 combines technology from big acquisitions into new Distributed Cloud Services platform

by Todd Bishop on February 15, 2022February 15, 2022 at 5:51 am

F5 is looking to expand its role in global application security and delivery with a new platform that integrates its homegrown software and services with those scooped up in a… Read More

Microsoft beats expectations with $51.7B in revenue, $18.8B profit; stock down 5% after hours

by Todd Bishop on January 25, 2022January 26, 2022 at 6:53 am

Microsoft posted revenue of $51.7 billion in the December quarter, up 20% from the same quarter last year, and profits of $18.8 billion, an increase of 21%, with earnings per… Read More

Cloud wake-up call: Amazon Web Services outage illustrates the pitfalls of online infrastructure

by Todd Bishop on December 8, 2021December 8, 2021 at 12:20 pm

Amazon Web Services is one of the greatest successes of modern business and technology, leveraging its first-mover advantage in the public cloud to empower companies with capabilities that they couldn’t… Read More

AWS problems impact Amazon, Disney, Smartsheet, Canva and other online services

by Todd Bishop on December 7, 2021December 7, 2021 at 3:12 pm

If you’re having problems buying items or logging in to Amazon.com, you’re not alone, and thanks to the widespread use of Amazon Web Services, the problem isn’t limited to Amazon.… Read More

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Amazon preps for a ‘multi-robot’ world: RoboRunner cloud service builds on its own warehouse tech

by Todd Bishop on November 29, 2021November 29, 2021 at 2:07 pm

The concept of “multi-cloud” has become widely accepted in the tech industry, as companies use different cloud vendors for various types of cloud workloads. Now Amazon is preparing for a… Read More