According to a foreign media report on April 30th, Beijing time, Curt Anderson, the financial director of Microsoft's console and tools department, recently said in an interview that over the past 12 months, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform and other software (used for building cloud platforms) generated $1 billion in revenue for the company.The $1 billion in revenue sounds exciting, as if Microsoft's cloud service Azure is on the right track to challenge Amazon, the biggest player in the cloud computing field.However, the $1 billion in revenue mentioned by Anderson also includes the software sold by Microsoft to hosting service providers for building cloud platforms. For example, the Windows Server platform sold by Microsoft to hosting service providers. Generally speaking, companies that need cloud computing services do not purchase their own software and hardware; instead, they lease them. The question now is whether Microsoft can get these companies to lease Windows Server from Microsoft.If Microsoft really generates $1 billion in revenue solely from Azure, that would be quite impressive. According to Wall Street analysts' expectations, Amazon's cloud service revenue in 2012 was around $2.1 billion. (Kirk)And other software (used for building cloud platforms) generated $1 billion in revenue for the company.The $1.1 billion in revenue sounds exciting, as if Microsoft's cloud service Azure is on the right track to challenge Amazon, the biggest player in the cloud computing field.However, the $1 billion in revenue mentioned by Anderson also includes the software sold by Microsoft to hosting service providers for building cloud platforms. For example, the Windows Server platform sold by Microsoft to hosting service providers. Generally speaking, companies that need cloud computing services do not purchase their own software and hardware; instead, they lease them. The question now is whether Microsoft can get these companies to lease Windows Server from Microsoft.If Microsoft really generates $1 billion in revenue solely from Azure, that would be quite impressive. According to Wall Street analysts' expectations, Amazon's cloud service revenue in 2012 was around $2.1 billion. (Kirk)