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Microsoft Looks to Lure Health-Care Companies to Its Cloud With New Tools

As rival Amazon enters the health-care space, Microsoft seeks business from medical firms moving to cloud
The silhouette of Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of the cloud and enterprise group at Microsoft Corp., is seen as he speaks during a keynote session at the Microsoft Developers Build Conference in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Thursday, March 31, 2016.
The silhouette of Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of the cloud and enterprise group at Microsoft Corp., is seen as he speaks during a keynote session at the Microsoft Developers Build Conference in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Thursday, March 31, 2016.Photographer: David Paul Morris

Microsoft Corp. is releasing new cloud technologies to fight disease and help health-care companies abide by privacy laws as the software giant looks to win more business as the medical sector moves to internet-based computing. 

Microsoft unveiled a tool for its Azure service that puts powerful computing resources to the task of gene-analysis for precision medicine – things like tailoring therapies to specific cancers. It’s already in use at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which will report its progress with extremely rare cancers at the American Association for Cancer Research conference in April, said Peter Lee, a Microsoft vice president for artificial intelligence and research.