Named rivals have given way to categories
Microsoft's fiscal 2024 Form 10-K (year ended 30 June 2024) named competitors segment by segment. The fiscal 2024 list of rivals, as FourWeekMBA summarizes it, includes:
- Cloud and AI: Amazon and Google.
- Operating systems: Apple and Google.
- Business applications: Oracle, Salesforce and SAP.
- Consoles: Sony and Nintendo.
- Search advertising: Google, Meta and OpenAI.
Treat that as a snapshot of one filing, not a current, exhaustive roster. The fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2026 10-Ks describe rivals mostly by type. Azure faces cloud service providers and open-source offerings. Microsoft's AI products face hyperscalers and emerging competitors, many of which are also current or potential partners.
One wording change stands out. The fiscal 2025 and 2026 filings add "AI-first application companies" to the competitors of Office, alongside traditional software vendors, web and mobile app makers, and local developers. That is a signal of how Microsoft sees the productivity field. It names no companies and puts no number on their impact, so don't read it as evidence that any particular startup is winning.
Takeaway: if you're negotiating a deal, ask who competes with the specific product you're buying. Microsoft as a whole is the wrong unit.
What the fiscal 2026 numbers say
The 10-K for the year ended 30 June 2026 reports:
- Intelligent Cloud: revenue of $137.791 billion, up 30%.
- Azure and other cloud services: revenue up 41%.
- Microsoft Cloud: revenue up 27% to $214.4 billion. This is a broader, company-defined measure. Don't swap it with Intelligent Cloud.
- Commercial remaining performance obligation (RPO): up 84% to $678 billion. RPO is contracted business not yet recognized as revenue. It is not current sales and not guaranteed near-term income.
- Microsoft 365 Commercial cloud: revenue up 17%. Microsoft ties revenue-per-user growth to Microsoft 365 Copilot and E5. The filing does not give a standalone Copilot revenue figure.
- Dynamics 365: revenue up 18%.
- Search advertising excluding traffic acquisition costs: revenue up 12%.
- Xbox: revenue down 7%, with hardware down 29% on lower console volume. Content and services fell 5%, and Game Pass growth partly offset that.
These are Microsoft's own figures. They don't establish market share or relative performance against AWS or Google Cloud. Those comparisons need rivals' filings with matching definitions, periods and segments.
OpenAI: partner, supplier and rival
The October 28, 2025 agreement, per Microsoft's announcement, included several terms:
- OpenAI contracted to buy an incremental $250 billion of Azure services.
- Microsoft gave up its right of first refusal to be OpenAI's compute provider.
- Microsoft kept exclusive IP rights and Azure API exclusivity, with specified exceptions.
- Microsoft's IP rights for models and products were extended through 2032.
The April 27, 2026 amendment went further. Microsoft remains OpenAI's primary cloud partner, and OpenAI products ship first on Azure unless Microsoft cannot and chooses not to support the necessary capabilities. OpenAI can now serve all its products across any cloud provider. Microsoft keeps a license to OpenAI IP for models and products through 2032, but that license is now non-exclusive.
CNBC reported that OpenAI will keep paying a revenue share to Microsoft, but Microsoft will stop paying one to OpenAI. Microsoft's post adds that OpenAI's payments continue through 2030 at the same percentage, subject to a total cap. CNBC also noted that OpenAI can now serve its products to customers across any provider, including Amazon and Google.
Some commentary says Microsoft has "lost exclusivity." That is too blunt. Microsoft still has Azure-first shipping, primary-cloud-partner status, a license to 2032 and a major shareholding. The accurate description is that Microsoft's lock on OpenAI has loosened, not disappeared.
What it means for IT buyers and developers
- Compare commitments, not just price. OpenAI's contracts show large buyers spreading workloads across providers while keeping a primary cloud.
- Don't assume parity across clouds. OpenAI being able to serve products on any cloud doesn't mean a given model or API is available identically everywhere. Check each service's current terms and documentation before making architecture decisions.
- Watch the Office and Copilot front. If "AI-first application companies" are already in your evaluations, Microsoft's filings suggest it sees them as real competition.
- Read RPO with care. It is a backlog indicator, and the October 2025 $250 billion commitment is one reason Microsoft's backlog is so large. Microsoft's filings don't break out that share here.
- Expect partner overlap. Microsoft says many competitors are also partners, and that includes Windows OEMs whose devices compete with Surface.
Bottom line
The broad rival lists in the FourWeekMBA explainer, such as Linux, LibreOffice, Chrome and Firefox, are reasonable orientation, but they come from the site's own catalog, not from Microsoft's filings. The more reliable signals are Microsoft's own disclosures. They show the competition moving from named companies to categories, AI-native apps joining the Office rivals, Azure growing fast, Xbox hardware shrinking, and OpenAI free to sell through other clouds.