Field notes from the edge.
What our engineers learned this week. Hands-on technical deep-dives, postmortems, and strategy frameworks.
AIMicrosoft's cloud brings rain of revenue but modest M365 AI revenue harvest
Microsoft reported $90 billion in quarterly revenue (up 18% YoY) driven by strong cloud and AI performance, with Azure revenue growing 43% and Microsoft Cloud reaching $59.3 billion. While Microsoft 365 Copilot reached 30 million paid seats—representing just 6.7% of its 450 million commercial customers—the company's aggressive $41 billion quarterly capital expenditure (up 70% YoY) was offset by st
AIMicrosoft faces competition probe over Copilot subscription price hike
The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is investigating Microsoft over potential consumer protection violations related to its January 2025 price increase for Microsoft 365 subscriptions. The probe focuses on whether Microsoft adequately informed customers about their options when it automatically moved them to a more expensive Copilot-enabled tier, requiring active opt-out to a cheaper
AILong-Lived Vulnerability in Microsoft Secure Boot
Security researchers at ESET discovered that Microsoft's Secure Boot protection has been vulnerable for 13 of its 14 years of existence due to 11 defective firmware images (shims) that remained digitally signed despite known vulnerabilities. These shims, some dating back to 2013, can be exploited using simple techniques to completely bypass Secure Boot protections embedded in device UEFI firmware.
AIWhat customers value most in Microsoft Databases—from reliability to AI readiness
Microsoft Databases received multiple 2026 PeerSpot Customer Choice/Tech Leader recognitions across SQL Server, Azure SQL Database, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, and Azure Cosmos DB. Customer feedback consistently highlights five key themes: reliability, scalability, operational simplicity, developer productivity, and AI readiness. These recognitions validate Microsoft's database portfolio as ent
AIMicrosoft Says New Cybersecurity AI Model Helps MDASH Hit 95.95% at Half the Cost
Microsoft has introduced its first cybersecurity-specific AI model, MAI-Cyber-1-Flash, integrated into its MDASH vulnerability identification and remediation platform. The new model combination achieved a 95.95% score on CyberGym benchmarks while reducing operational costs by 50% compared to Microsoft's previous best configuration. Access to the enhanced MDASH system is currently restricted to app
AT&T and Microsoft scale trillion-token workloads with Microsoft Foundry and AMD
First-of-its-kind telecom AI deployment Telecommunications organizations are increasingly looking to AI to help teams navigate highly specialized domains, but generic models often lack the industry-specific knowledge needed to understand telecom networks, standards, and operations. To address that gap, AT&T created their Open Telco (OTel) models, the next generation of telecom-
Azure Databricks delivers proven business value
Microsoft Azure Databricks delivers the first-party advantage of Databricks on Microsoft—and for customers, that advantage shows up as real, measurable value. It is the same Databricks platform your teams already know, co-engineered with Microsoft and delivered as a native Azure service , so it fits naturally into the Microsoft tools, identity, and governance your organization
Frontier models and production agents: Advancing Microsoft Foundry for the agentic era
What’s new today GPT‑5.6 is generally available in Microsoft Foundry, alongside the Asia-Pacific Data Zone, and hosted agents in Foundry Agent Service. AI only creates value when it shows up in real systems—systems that are reliable, observable, and aligned to business outcomes. More than 100,000 organizations are already building on Microsoft Foundry , and companies like Adobe
External key management for Azure Managed HSM is now in public preview
Azure Key Vault Managed Hardware Security Module (HSM) provides strong sovereignty over your encryption keys. Keys are generated and stored in a single-tenant, FIPS 140-3 Level 3 HSM that only you control: Microsoft has no access to your key material, and you govern who can use each key. For most organizations, including those with stringent regulatory requirements, this level
Built to bounce back: How Azure resiliency evolved
In this article Resiliency as a shared responsibility, not a handoff Platform foundations that reflect reality: zones, regions, and sovereignty Azure features and capabilities strengthen resiliency outcomes Bridging intent to execution through experiences on Azure How you can build Resilience in Azure Azure Essentials Resiliency in the cloud is often described in terms of avail
Azure IaaS: How to design, build, and optimize cloud infrastructure for long-term cost efficiency
In this article Compute: Matching resources to workload requirements Storage: Balancing performance and lifecycle management Networking: Improving efficiency without compromising resiliency Continuous optimization is where long-term savings happen Continue your Azure IaaS optimization journey Create a resilient infrastructure with Azure This blog post is the third part of a blo
Proving application resilience on Azure with Chaos Studio
Takeaway: Azure Chaos Studio helps organizations validate application resilience by simulating outages, failovers, network disruptions, and infrastructure failures before they impact production. You don’t know with certainty that your application is resilient until that resilience is tested. Better to learn it isn’t by deliberately breaking it in a test environment and watching
Meet Brain: The AI system behind Azure reliability
In this article How Azure's AI-powered reliability intelligence system works Why Brain is needed What is Brain? Azure’s centralized AIOps for cloud reliability Foundations of Azure’s digital twin for cloud health What it means to operate against a cloud intelligence system The future of agentic AI and cloud operations What's next for Azure reliability and Brain Azure reliabilit
The 2026 Agent Confidence Index: Where 300 builders see real momentum
A couple of months ago, I sat across from my nine-year-old daughter’s teachers at a parent-teacher conference. They were kind but concerned. She takes her time on assignments, they said—often deep in thought. How would she do on timed tests next year? I told them I wasn’t worried. What they described as a problem is, to me, one of the most important things she can learn: the ab
Claude in Microsoft Foundry is now generally available
Claude in Microsoft Foundry is the production path enterprises have been asking for: true frontier model choice, Azure-native controls, simplified procurement, and faster time to value. Most enterprise AI projects do not stall because of model quality. They stall because of everything around the model: procurement, governance, networking, and data. Claude in Microsoft Foundry i
The performance dividend: Optimizing PostgreSQL on Azure directly in Visual Studio Code
Poor database performance is never just a database problem. In enterprise teams, it shows up as missed service-level agreements (SLAs), delayed releases, frustrated development teams, and rising operational risk. The performance problem compounds further in business impact, often resulting in frustrated customers, retention and conversion risk, and lost revenue. I have seen thi
From insight to action: The next phase of agentic cloud operations
In this article Governance connects insight to action Observability is the intelligence layer From signals to resolution Optimization becomes continuous From dashboards to connected workflows Optimization intelligence across tools and environments Bringing it all together in a closed loop system Get started with Azure Azure Copilot What if your cloud environment could help you
AIModernize your data with Azure Storage: Plan and migrate with confidence
Enterprise storage migrations to Azure require strategic planning beyond simple data copying, addressing business continuity, performance, and cost management. Microsoft offers a comprehensive migration framework combining Azure Migrate for assessment and planning with specialized tools like Azure Storage Mover for online transfers and Azure Data Box for offline bulk migrations. The approach empha
AI3 things leaders need to know from Microsoft Build 2026
Microsoft Build 2026 signals a shift from AI experimentation to production-scale deployment, emphasizing that competitive advantage comes from AI systems that understand your specific business context rather than generic tools. The announcements focus on three critical areas: building shared intelligence foundations through Microsoft IQ, creating integrated platforms for enterprise-scale agent dep