Founded in 1975, Microsoft has been on the forefront as far as technological advancement is concerned, and it has remained on top of the list as one of the most valuable companies in the world. Being one of the major areas of technological advancements, cloud computing is becoming popular among companies that are highly concerned about quality service delivery like Microsoft. According to Khurana and Verma (2013, p. 29), a computational process where service delivery occurs over a network using computing resources is referred to as cloud computing. There are three different models of cloud computing namely; Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). These three service models have brought about significant advantages for Microsoft.
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Software as a Service (SaaS) gives customers an opportunity to access a given application as a service. Majority of Microsoft’s applications use Software-as-a-Service, (SaaS), to deliver most of its services to customers. SaaS has been advantageous to Microsoft because it has enabled the company to generate more revenue than the one it generated before it could focus on cloud computing. For example, in 2010, Microsoft managed to generate more than 5 billion United States dollars as revenue from its SaaS offerings (Inansiti and Serels, 2013, 8). It is anticipated that this revenue might increase even further if Microsoft continues to lay emphasis on cloud computing.
Microsoft also uses Platform as a Service (PaaS) to enable its customers to create software using tools from providers. With PaaS, Microsoft’s customers can also control software deployment settings. PaaS has enabled Microsoft to collaborate effectively with other companies and with other web services. In 2011, Microsoft earned revenue of 4.5 percent higher than that of 2010 from its PaaS offering (Inansiti and Serels, 2013, 8). This indicates how much Microsoft benefits from offering Platform as a Service. Microsoft Windows Azure as PaaS and SQL Azure allow Microsoft to deploy its custom applications and configure them according to changes in demand (Inansiti and Serels, 2013, p. 10) .
Infrastructure as a Service, (IaaS), is considered as the foundation of Cloud Computing. Microsoft uses IaaS to provide delivery of computing as a shared service to its customers through resources such as network, storage, and servers components. This has helped the company to minimize maintenance, operational and investment costs. Additionally, with IaaS, Microsoft ensures that its servers are reliable, flexible, and easy to use (Caruso 2011). In the recent past, Microsoft has benefited greatly from its IaaS service model.
For instance, IaaS has enabled Microsoft to lower the costs of internet ownership, particularly with its Windows server. IaaS service model of cloud computing also helps Microsoft to eliminate the need for hardware maintenance and administration. Additionally, for quite a long time, Microsoft has been able to upgrade internet infrastructure for all subscribers with the sole assistance of Internet-as-a- Service model of cloud computing. With the IaaS model, Microsoft has been able to outsource various infrastructure elements such as Networking, Virtualization, and Storage from other cloud providers, which has helped the company to minimize cost.
The IaaS model also enables Microsoft’s customers to update and maintain the operating systems of all application softwares they install. For instance, using Microsoft Azure as IaaS, users are able to set up new Linux virtual machines and Windows Server and adjust their usage according to changes in requirements (Caruso, 2011). Many customers are attracted to Microsoft’s IaaS offering which helps the company to increase revenue. One of the biggest benefits that Microsoft has reaped from IaaS is that, IaaS has enabled Microsoft to scale its computing and storage resources with ease which allows the company to meet the infrastructure needs of the entire organization (Inansiti and Serels, 2013, 10).
Conclusion
In conclusion, analytics is of great importance to modern organizations, particularly for those companies that generate huge volumes of data. This is evident in the manner in which Procter and Gamble has benefited from the same. For instance, analytics has been the source of speedy and quick decision making at Procter and Gamble. The company also uses information to add value to management on areas related to supply chain management, human resource management, marketing management, and production management.
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