-- Announces several Azure enhancements, cloud appliance and industry partnerships, and a marketplace to easily connect startups and enterprise customers.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 20, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Monday, at an event in San Francisco, Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella outlined how Microsoft is using Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics to deliver the industry's most complete cloud — for every business, every industry and every geography. Furthering this commitment, Microsoft announced several enhancements to its hyper-scale, enterprise-grade, hybrid cloud platform, including the new Azure G-series of virtual machines and Premium Storage; the general availability of the Microsoft Cloud Platform System, powered by Dell; partnerships with Cloudera Inc. and CoreOS; and a new Azure Marketplace.

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"The enterprises of today and tomorrow demand a cloud platform that is reliable, scalable and flexible," Nadella said. "With more than 80 percent of the Fortune 500 on the Microsoft cloud, we are delivering the industry's most complete cloud — for every business, every industry and every geography."

A hyper-scale, enterprise-grade and hybrid cloud infrastructure

Worldwide demand for cloud computing continues to accelerate, and Microsoft is investing to meet this demand. Monday the company announced the latest milestone in the global expansion of Azure, with general availability of Azure in the Australia region next week. By the end of 2014, Microsoft Azure will be operational in 19 regions around the world — at least double the number of any other public cloud provider.

Microsoft also announced the G-series of virtual machines and premium storage for Microsoft Azure. Powered by the latest Intel Xeon processors, the G-series will be the largest virtual machines available in the public cloud to date, while Azure Premium Storage will provide incredible performance per virtual machine. Together they will deliver the enterprise-grade scale and performance that enterprises and developers need to run the most demanding workloads in the cloud.

As enterprises accelerate their adoption of cloud computing, the demand for security enhanced, scalable and reliable hybrid cloud solutions is on the rise. The Microsoft Cloud Platform System (CPS), powered by Dell, brings together Azure, Windows Server and Microsoft System Center to deliver an "Azure-consistent cloud in a box." With pre-integrated hardware from Dell and software from Microsoft, CPS delivers learnings from Azure to customers and partners with the control of an on-premises appliance. CPS will be available for purchase on Nov. 3.

Enterprise + startups and ISVs = accelerated cloud adoption and innovation

With more than 40 percent of Azure revenue coming from startups and ISVs, the new Azure Marketplace will connect this important ecosystem with enterprise customers everywhere. Now Azure customers will be able to search for and deploy their favorite operating system, service or application with just a couple of clicks. Monday, two new partners join Docker Inc., Oracle and hundreds of others in the Azure Marketplace:

• Cloudera, a leader in enterprise analytics and data management, will be Azure certified by the end of 2014. This will provide a quick and easy way to deploy Cloudera Enterprise, connect to Microsoft Power BI and discover new insights, in minutes.
• CoreOS, the popular container-based Linux operating system, is now available to all Azure customers. Customers can deploy CoreOS images directly from the Azure Marketplace starting Monday. This broadens Microsoft's first-class support for Linux on Azure.

"Our ecosystem is the backbone of our cloud platform, and our embrace of open source technologies is at the heart," said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Cloud and Enterprise at Microsoft. "By helping to create an open platform powered by choice and flexibility, we are enabling the enterprises and developers of today and tomorrow to connect with each other and create new business opportunities in the mobile-first, cloud-first world."

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services, devices and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. 

Related Links

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SOURCE Microsoft Corp.