Short answers, pulled from the story.
Microsoft Azure was first announced in October 2008 under the codename "Project Red Dog" at the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles. It launched commercially as Windows Azure on the 1st of February 2010 and was renamed Microsoft Azure on the 25th of March 2014.
Dave Cutler, who was persuaded to postpone his retirement, served as lead developer of Microsoft Azure. Ray Ozzie and Amitabh Srivastava were instrumental in the project's origins after Microsoft acquired Groove Networks in 2005. Mark Russinovich serves as CTO of Microsoft Azure, and Scott Guthrie is Executive Vice President of the Cloud and AI group.
Microsoft Azure offers more than 600 services. At fiscal year-end 2025, it operated over 400 data centers across 70 regions worldwide and reported more than $75 billion in annual revenue.
In August 2021, the ChaosDB vulnerability in Azure Cosmos DB gave researchers unrestricted access to thousands of customer accounts. That same month, the Azurescape vulnerability in Azure Container Instances allowed one cloud user to execute code in other users' environments. In July 2023, the Cyber Safety Review Board blamed Microsoft for security failures that allowed Chinese hackers to access U.S. government email systems.
No Azure for Apartheid is a human rights campaign accusing Microsoft of providing cloud and AI services to entities involved in oppressive policies, particularly in occupied Palestinian territories. Protesters demand transparency, ethical oversight, and termination of contracts they argue could enable surveillance and systemic discrimination. Microsoft has defended its practices as compliant with international law.
Azure Orbital launched in September 2020 to let private industries and government agencies process satellite data by connecting directly to cloud networks. It supported third-party systems including SpaceX's Starlink. Azure Orbital was retired in December 2024, with its existing assets sold to Space Leasing International.