Microsoft posted a solid quarterly earnings and revenue beat , but slowing growth in its Azure cloud computing business wasn’t enough to exceed investors’ lofty expectations, weighing shares down 12% on Thursday. However, Wall Street analysts criticized the sell-off. Microsoft’s earnings came in at an adjusted $4.14 per share, exceeding the $3.97 analysts polled by LSEG had expected. The firm posted revenue of $81.27 billion, also higher than the $80.27 consensus estimate. Microsoft’s current-quarter guidance also met LSEG consensus expectations. But shares were dragged lower after revenue from Azure and other cloud services grew at 39%, lower than the 40% growth from Microsoft’s fiscal first quarter. Analysts polled by StreetAccount and CBNC had respectively forecast this growth to come in at 39.4% and 38.9%. While analysts across Wall Street acknowledged this miss in cloud growth, they also remarked that market expectations appear too high. Morgan Stanley analyst Keith Weiss said…
By Steve Sweetman Publication Date: 2026-02-05 17:46:00 With Claude Opus 4.6 now available in Microsoft Foundry, developers can delegate complex tasks end‑to‑end…