Some key takeaways from the Microsoft earnings call for the quarter ended 12/31/2023:

* Revenue of $62B grew 18% YOY (9.7% QoQ) and beat estimates by 1.8%

* This the highest YoY revenue growth percentage in nearly 2 years, driven by rising cloud and GenAI demand

* EPS of $2.93 beats estimate of $2.78. EPS has grown 33% compared to the same quarter last year.

* Overall Cloud revenue of $33.7B grew 24% YoY

* Expects Office 365 growth of 15% in Q3'24 exceeding Street expectations of 12.5%.

* Azure grew 30% YoY driven by strong demand for AI services (estimate was 27.5% YoY)

* Expects revenue between $60B and $61B in the current quarter

* Azure to maintain 28% YoY growth vs. previous guidance of 26% growth given on last call.

"The period of massive optimization only and no new workloads has ended. Seeing more of the continuous cycle of customers optimizing and also deploying new workloads" - CEO Satya Nadella

Cloud providers use the word "optimization" as a euphemism for "reducing cloud spend".

I'm a long-time shareholder (first purchase in 2018), and will continue to hold.