Financial results from Amazon and Microsoft sent the personal fortunes of Jeff Bezos and Steve Ballmer soaring last week, lifting Bezos to a $4.6 billion one-day rise on Friday, along with an $11 billion gain for the year as of Tuesday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Ballmer added $1.5 billion on Friday, putting his annual gain, as of Wednesday, at more than $600 million.
Amazon, the world's leading cloud computing company with a 28 percent market share, reported on Friday that revenue for the business increased 49 percent, to $1.6 billion, in the first quarter. Microsoft has a 10 percent share and reported on Friday that commercial cloud sales more than doubled for the seventh quarter in a row. Amazon, which has found little resistance in the overseas expansion for its cloud unit, said it has 1 million customers. Alibaba's cloud service, Aliyun, has more than 1.4 million customers and is beginning an international expansion of its own.
