I work at MSFT in the Azure division. I have no idea about the specifics of accounting terminology, but from what I hear internally I can say that we're quite pleased with both the absolute numbers and the projected growth. It's understandable that our cloud isn't as prominent in the minds of the HN crowd as some of the other well-known ones, but we actually do have the kind of customer base to make the public numbers credible.
Thanks very much for the contribution to the discussion. I appreciate the insight.
When they talk about software being counted as part of the billing do you have any idea what they might mean? I believe it was described as software to build applications in Azure.