Cloud Services and Providers – Overview and Latest News

Microsoft has rolled out Entra passkeys for Windows, storing device-bound credentials in Windows Hello to block AiTM phishing attacks.

Microsoft has launched Copilot Cowork, a cloud AI agent powered by Anthropic's Claude that runs multi-step tasks across Microsoft 365 for $30/user/month.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has credited Intel and Apple's Mac as foundational to Windows and Office, revealing the non-zero-sum philosophy behind his tenure.

Oracle has announced plans to cut 20,000–30,000 jobs in March 2026, its largest-ever workforce reduction, as AI data center spending strains cash flow.

OpenAI has revealed plans for a GitHub rival built after repeated outages, a move that risks direct conflict with backer Microsoft.

Microsoft has expanded its Windows 365 Cloud PC lineup by adding Asus NUC 16 and Dell Pro Desktop thin client devices, giving enterprises more hardware options.

OpenAI has updated its Pentagon contract to explicitly ban mass domestic surveillance after employee backlash. Sam Altman called the original deal "sloppy."

ICE has tripled its Microsoft Azure data usage to 1,400TB while deploying AI surveillance tools, raising questions about Microsoft's mass surveillance policies.

Microsoft has secured 20% of OpenAI revenue through 2032, extending its AI deal while OpenAI has gained compute flexibility and long-term model access.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has sold 77% of its Amazon stake for nearly $1.7B as Bill Ackman has increased his position in starkly different bets

Western Digital and Seagate have confirmed their entire 2026 hard drive production is sold out to AI data centers, causing consumer prices to surge nearly 50%.

Apple has unveiled M5-based Private Cloud Compute servers, skipping M3 Ultra and M4 generations to enhance next-generation Apple Intelligence cloud features.

A GitHub project has enabled encoding files as lossless video for YouTube storage, gaining 367 stars despite Terms of Service violations and account termination risk.

Cloudflare has jumped 5% after beating Q4 earnings estimates, crediting surging demand from AI agents for its edge computing and security services.

Microsoft has confirmed Exchange Online is incorrectly flagging legitimate emails as phishing due to an overly aggressive URL detection rule introduced this week.

Cloudflare has accused Google of abusing its search crawler monopoly to harvest 4.8 times more AI training data than Microsoft, forcing publishers into an impossible choice between protecting content and maintaining search visibility.

Flickr has disclosed a data security incident where user personal information was exposed through a third-party email service vulnerability. Passwords remain secure.

A former CircleCI employee has called GitHub Actions 'the Internet Explorer of CI,' revealing systemic issues costing engineering teams up to 20% of weekly productivity.

Alphabet has reported record Q4 2025 earnings with Google Search revenue growing 17% and annual revenue exceeding $400 billion, as AI expands rather than erodes the core business.

Microsoft has announced the retirement of standalone SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business plans, forcing customer migration to Microsoft 365 bundles by 2029.

Oracle has announced plans to raise up to $50 billion in 2026 through debt and equity to expand AI cloud infrastructure amid explosive demand from major customers.

Perplexity has signed a three-year, $750 million deal with Microsoft to use Azure cloud services while maintaining AWS as its primary cloud provider.

Microsoft has reported Q2 fiscal 2026 revenue of $81.3 billion with cloud topping $50 billion for the first time, though OpenAI accounts for 45% of backlog.

Microsoft has projected its data center water use will more than double by 2030 despite conservation pledges, as AI infrastructure expansion accelerates.

Microsoft has unveiled its Maia 200 AI accelerator, claiming triple the inference performance of Amazon's Trainium 3 and superiority over Google's TPU v7.

NVIDIA has invested $2 billion in CoreWeave to accelerate AI data center buildout, targeting 5 gigawatts of AI factories by 2030 amid scrutiny over circular financing.

Microsoft has announced it will automatically enable passkey profiles across all Entra ID tenants starting March 2026, introducing synced passkey capabilities.

Microsoft has issued guidance to uninstall KB5074109 security update or switch to webmail after the patch caused Outlook Classic to freeze on Windows 11 systems.

Google has launched Personal Intelligence for AI Mode, allowing paid subscribers to connect Gmail and Google Photos for personalized search results tailored to their data.

Microsoft has released Security Baseline v2512 for Microsoft 365 Apps with enhanced Excel and PowerPoint protections, blocking unsafe external links and legacy automation components.