Microsoft has announced a series of significant changes to its quarterly revenue reporting structure in a moved aimed at providing investors with a clearer understanding of its cloud computing business.
The changes are expected to better reflect the performance of Azure, Microsoft’s competitor to Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud.
Microsoft’s adjustments come as part of a broader reorganization within the company’s reporting segments, designed to align with the company’s evolving business model.
Microsoft highlighting cloud and AI successes
Among the changes was the move of the Power BI data analytics tool and the Enterprise Mobility and Security group away from the Azure growth metric in order to emphasize consumption-based revenue. However, revenue from search and news advertising, previously under the More Personal Computing segment, will now be included in the Azure metric.
The company also reorganized its Productivity and Business Processes segment to include some services that were previously categorized under the Intelligent Cloud unit, together with some Windows commercial products and cloud services from the More Personal Computing category.
Microsoft hopes that the changes will help investors to better understand revenue streams in an era of artificial intelligence and cloud computing. The company reported $64.7 billion in revenue last quarter, up 15% year-on-year.
“As a platform company, we are focused on meeting the mission-critical needs of our customers across our at-scale platforms today, while also ensuring we lead the AI era," company CEO Satya Nadella said.
However, while the changes are designed to provide greater transparency into emerging markets, some have expressed concerns that the company could also be using the shift to obscure the health of other businesses, such as the Windows operating system and Microsoft Office productivity software.
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