Microsoft announced that it will remove two components of the Azure and other cloud services revenue growth metric it releases every quarter.
The change will provide a better understanding of the performance of the growing Azure cloud infrastructure business, which competes with Amazon Web Services, one analyst said.
Microsoft is adding revenue from its search and news advertising category — which until now was under More Personal Computing — into Azure and other cloud services.
The company said it expects 33% constant-currency revenue growth for Azure and other cloud services under the new definition for the fiscal first quarter, down 1 to 2 percentage points from the fiscal fourth quarter. In late July, based on the prior Azure definition, the company had called for growth of 28% to 29% at constant currency.
Historically, consumption has driven growth in Azure and other cloud services, rather than the per-user tools, where growth in the number of seats has slowed.
