When Satya Nadella became 's (NASDAQ: MSFT) third CEO in 2014, he vowed to transform the aging tech giant into a "mobile first, cloud first" company. That bold strategy boosted the company's annual revenue at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10% from fiscal 2014 to fiscal 2023 (which ended last June) as its earnings per share (EPS) grew at a CAGR of 16%. It also repurchased nearly 10% of its shares over the past 10 years.

During that golden decade, Microsoft's stock rallied nearly 890%, which turned it into the world's second-most-valuable company with a market capitalization of $3.3 trillion. A lot of that growth has been driven by Azure, which expanded into one of the three dominant leaders of the booming cloud computing market.

Below is a fresh look at Azure, how fast it's growing, and why it will likely remain Microsoft's most important business for the foreseeable future.

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Source Fool.com