Azure Art

Greetings to all from locked down Rome.

Azure, the color, has a long history. A part from being a noble and beautiful color, it takes the name from a powdered lapis lazuli, a rock that's been mined for more than six millennials. Ground lapis lazuli was increasingly used by painters during the 13th and 14th centuries to make ultramarine.

Mastering this material was challenging. Lots of craftsmen developed fine techniques to work with it, furthering its usage. Mastery in preparing the pigment and carving this material was an art in itself.

Lapis lazuli is most widely known for its use as a gemstone. It is a popular material for cutting into cabochons and beads. It is also used in inlay or mosaic projects and often as a material for small sculptures. These uses made lapis the most popular opaque blue gemstone.

Giotto, is renowned for his naturalistic and realistic works in tempera and fresco. He used lapis pigment, for instance, on the ceiling vault (and what a fortune that must have cost) to depict Heaven itself (see picture above). Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) used ultramarine to paint The Starry Night in 1889. And many others.

The innumerable paintings, canvass, jewelry, carvings, etc. are a testament of the durability of this rock.

During the 1950s, the French artist Yves Klein tried and failed to concoct a blue as intense as that used by Giotto. Artists have continued to return to the original, inimitable stone.

Now, take Azure, the Microsoft Cloud. It doesn't have such a long history but bear a lot of resemblance to the stone. To start with, Azure approach is to empower developers (craftsmen), partners (painters), and customers with the ability to craft their own solutions. Like the stone, Azure is metamorphic.

The gemstones of Microsoft Azure are the platforms. Like gemstones, they are cut and polished for purpose. Take the data platform for instance. A synergic, comprehensive data architecture that brings AI to your data so you gain deep knowledge about your business and customers. Lapis lazuli is also slightly porous. I bet you'll draw the best analogy here ;-)

The secret of lapis spread and variety of applications laid in the mastery of those who worked with it and the centers of "production" it gave birth to. Analogously, the pulsing heart of Azure lies in its developer-friendly ecosystem. Just a few strokes (of the brush - sorry I couldn't help myself :-))

• Visual Studio Code is arguably the number one developer productivity tool
• Number one social network for open-source software development with GitHub
• Deep relationships with open-source partners. Microsoft brings open-source technologies to Azure with deep engagements, including unique ones like Azure Databricks.

This represents in my opinion the greatest structural advantage of Azure versus Amazon and Google (not surprisingly, the analysts think Microsoft’s commercial cloud business could top $100 billion in revenue by fiscal 2024).

And of course, any attempt to concoct something similar will be futile ;-)

My homage to those who have come so far. A free ticket to Azure art gallery!