Coding assistant GitHub Copilot is a major driver of Microsoft’s business model, and the company expects it to continue to grow.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella noted the importance of Copilot during a July 30 earnings call with investors. The coding tool, according to Nadella, “accounted for over 40% of GitHub’s revenue growth this year and is already a larger business than all of GitHub was when we acquired it.”

“GitHub Copilot is by far the most widely adopted AI-powered developer tool,” Nadella said. “Just over two years since its general availability, more than 77,000 organizations, from BBVA, FedEx, and H&M to Infosys and Paytm, have adopted Copilot, up 180% year over year.”

Up and down. The Q4 earnings call presented an overall positive picture for Microsoft. But it also led to a temporary dip in share price after the company reported a lower than expected increase in revenue for its cloud business, specifically the flagship Azure product. The $28.5 billion in revenue for Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud segment, of which Azure is a part, was below the analyst-predicted $28.7 billion.

Read the rest here.—EH

IT pros are a lot like quarterbacks: They’re under intense pressure to put touchdowns on the board for their biz (i.e., boost productivity while keeping software costs at bay). Working in IT can feel a lot like throwing Hail Marys while facing a blitz.

That’s why you gotta peep BetterCloud’s SMP playbook for IT leaders. It’s jam-packed with top-notch info on how selecting the right SaaS management platform can launch IT to the rafters.

And BetterCloud is well aware of how difficult it can be to get the C-suite to invest in new automation software. You’re in luck, though: This playbook provides a template to build a business case that’ll help you win over the top brass.

IT’s time to score a touchdown.

Recent earnings calls from tech giants Google, Amazon, and Microsoft showed that AI takes time and money—and investors lately seem concerned with both, even as the vendors all reported cloud-revenue growth, year over year.

The quarterly revenue announcements revealed the ups, downs, and uncertainties of an emerging technology that may not be emerging as fast investors would like.

“You may be seeing profitability in these cloud businesses, but I feel like right now, if you were to just narrow it down on AI, they’re probably spending more than they’re generating revenue. And investors want to see that flip the other way,” Dave McCarthy, research vice president for cloud and edge services and worldwide infrastructure research, at market-intelligence firm IDC told IT Brew.

Read more here.—BH

When an end-of-the-workweek CrowdStrike update temporarily turned some Windows machines into blue screens of death, many organizations (and universities) had to scrap their Saturday beach plans, head to the command line, and reboot a bunch of computers.

R. Hal Baker, a doctor, SVP, and chief digital and information officer, and his IT team at WellSpan Health, an org with 9 hospitals and 250-plus patient locations across Pennsylvania and Northern Maryland, had to address almost 3,000 devices. That meant about 70 people volunteering over the weekend to provide hands-on-keyboard remediation.

“It almost looked like the flu-shot line or Covid-shot line, except people had their laptops and they were getting fixed,” Baker said.

With a Friday outage, according to Baker, some systems—thankfully, like those in the billing department—could wait until Monday. Regarding weekend remediation plans: “There was a certain opportunity to move non-disruptively,” he said.

Keep reading here.—BH

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