Microsoft announcing on Wednesday that Windows Azure will be renamed to Microsoft Azure. The change will be effective from April 3, 2014. This change reflects Microsoft’s strategy and focus on Azure as the public cloud platform for customers as well as for our own services Office 365, Dynamics CRM, Bing, OneDrive, Skype, and Xbox Live.

Microsoft has been implementing several changes to gain traction for its Windows as well as Windows Phone products. It recently extended Microsoft Office support for Apple’s iPad, and speculation is rife that the company plans to extend Azure support for other platforms too.

“Our commitment to deliver an enterprise-grade cloud platform for the world’s applications is greater than ever. Today we support one of  the broadest set of operating systems, languages, and services of any public cloud—from Windows, SQL and .NET to Python, Ruby, Node.js, Java, Hadoop, Linux, and Oracle. In today’s mobile-first, cloud-first, data-powered world, customers want a public cloud platform that supports their needs—whatever they may be—and that public cloud is Microsoft Azure.”, stated Steven Martin, general manager for Windows Azure, in a brief blog post.

               

The move comes less than two months into Satya Nadella's tenure as Microsoft's new CEO. As the former chief of the tech company's cloud computing and enterprise software units, the shift exemplifies his services-centric approach to an IT market that in recent years has taken a decidedly mobile- and cloud-enabled direction, largely at the expense of PC sales.