Microsoft hit a huge milestone today with it’s cloud computing platform Azure. It now has more than 10,000 customers (each with an unspecified number of users) using its Windows Azure cloud hosting environment. 10,000 cloud computing customers was mentioned by Doug Hauger, General Manager of Windows Azure, during his appearance on June 3 at the Cowen & Co. Tech Conference. ( via the Webcast.)
Hauger said “50 percent of customers using Azure are running their applications in steady state — in other words, as replacements for on-site/on-premises software.”
“Adoption has been very good,” Hauger told attendees of the conference, noting that the customer base included smaller independent software vendors and developers, but also a number of enterprise customers. He said that once business customer took the time to actually assess the regulatory requirements for particular applications/verticals, they discovered that they weren’t as stringent as they believed. Consequently, certain customers were moving their line-of-business applications to Azure, given they “only” needed FAST or ISO certification, he said.
