Apr 20, 2017 09:23 AM EDT By Emily Schultz, UniversityHerald Reporter

Remember Steve Ballmer? The former Microsoft CEO and the first business manager hired by Microsoft's founder Bill Gates. Well this week, the former CEO and Microsoft stockholder have made a fine conversation with CNBC, where Ballmer talked and discussed more about Microsoft's business, including the much-talked and enterprise-favorite Microsoft Azure.

In a more recent interview with CNBC, the former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talked more about Microsoft Azure, saying that with the company's Office 365 and Azure cloud platform, Microsoft got a real shot but not a birthright. Ballmer also claims that the company needs to push hard with the ongoing Microsoft Azure vs. AWS cloud battle, the OnMSFT reported.

Microsoft is well known in the tech circle for its ubiquitous Windows OS and Office software, but the Redmond-based software company also got a big name in the fast-growing cloud computing market, thanks to its Microsoft Azure cloud platform. With its steady flow of revenue and growing market shares, Azure has now become a significant revenue driver for the company in just a few years.

Microsoft Azure has seen tremendous growth with current CEO Satya Nadella, bringing the company a whopping $6.9 billion in cloud revenue in the second quarter of this year only. Under the leadership of Satya Nadella, Microsoft Azure has managed to grab and secure the number two position in the hotly contested cloud computing market.

Despite of its tremendous growth and huge achievement, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer still believes that Microsoft Azure has a lot of work to do here and that the battle for cloud supremacy would not be easy. But Ballmer points out that Azure still in good position to take on the industry leader Amazon Web Services.

Additionally, the former Microsoft CEO also remarked that he is "most pleased" with the current effort on Microsoft Surface. Ballmer also revealed to news agency CNBC that he keeps in touch with current Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, claiming that he fires off essentially product feedback in Skype or "one of the other Microsoft products.

In another Azure-related story, Microsoft Azure continues to grow but not quick enough to beat AWS. The current market leader Amazon Web Services (AWS) may be ceding some market share to Microsoft Azure, but the Redmond-based company still have a lot of ground to make up, according to Redmond Channel Partner.

Microsoft's foray into the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) segment has now started to pay off, with revenues from its cloud business has grown about 360 percent over the past two years. It's now the only cloud service provider that making a triple digits growth in the market.

With this tremendous growth, some analyst believes that the gap between Azure and AWS appears to be narrowing down. For years, the two cloud behemoths have been locked in an ongoing cloud battle, involving pricing, features, functionality and cloud updates.

Microsoft has made a great job of countering every rival's moves. Some analyst believes that the continuous burst of cloud upgrades along with the more effective pricing strategy are all part of Microsoft's strategy to compete with the well-established AWS. However, the fight for the top spot will not be an easy job for Azure as AWS continues to hold.

According to the recently conducted study"The RightScale 2017 State of the Cloud Report," AWS remains to hold the top lead with 57 percent of customers claiming currently running applications in AWS, followed by Microsoft Azure at 34 percent. Overall, Microsoft Azure made an impressive performance of competing with AWS and successfully taking the second place position, thus making the fierce cloud battle a "two-horse race."

For more about "The RightScale 2017 State of the Cloud Report," check out their website here.

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