Up until now, Microsoft (News
- Alert) has stayed silent on its cloud computing revenue for 2012 for services such as Office 365 and Windows Azure. Obviously, the company can't stay silent on its cloud earnings forever, especially since its competitors in the cloud space have begun to post their financial figures for the year.
For example, Oracle (News
- Alert) recently stated that its cloud revenue run rate is nearing $1 billion. Surely, Microsoft won't leave this unanswered — especially since both Wall Street and the media tend to underestimate Microsoft's momentum in this space.
With heavy hitters like Office 365, Windows Azure, Dynamics CRM Online, Windows Intune and more in its cloud computing roster, Microsoft is likely to be doing very well.
But all of this is speculation without any feedback from Microsoft. Fortunately, Microsoft Channel Chief Jon Roskill did let slip back in March 2012 that the company may soon be the biggest provider of cloud software in the world, if it isn't already. Unfortunately, Microsoft CFO Peter Klein (News - Alert) has yet to publicly disclose any specific cloud figures. In fact, during the Microsoft October 2012 earnings call with Wall Street, Klein mostly stayed clear of mentioning the company's cloud business.
One major factor perhaps often overlooked in Microsoft's cloud business is the hosting and cloud services providers as well as telcos that are hosting or syndicating the company's applications.
For example, SherWeb, a Microsoft Gold Certified partner, boasts Hosted Exchange and Office 365 offerings. The company offers Hosted Exchange 2010 in three packages including Standard, Professional and Business which all vary in terms of mailbox storage. For example, the Standard package features a 1GB mailbox, while Professional offers 25GB of storage and Business boasts unlimited storage.
SherWeb also recently began offering its Hosted Exchange 2013 offering to distributors, resellers and advisors selling its cloud services. The company even offers Hosted Lync 2010, Hosted SharePoint 2010 and CRM.
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Edited by Jamie Epstein