Cloud business boosts Microsoft's quarterly revenue, shares rise

By Deborah M. Todd
(Reuters) – Sharp growth in its commercial cloud computing business helped lift Microsoft Corp’s quarterly revenue above Wall Street’s expectations, sending the technology company’s shares up more than 4 percent in after-hours trading.
The new and growing cloud business – essentially selling computing services and storage in its data centres to corporate customers – is one of the priorities for Chief Executive Satya Nadella, who took the hel