Microsoft's Huge Year

In a year that saw Microsoft cross a $1 trillion market capitalization, the highlights were numerous. Many of the biggest wins were driven by Microsoft's Azure cloud platform, and came at the expense of competitors such as Amazon Web Services. But 2019 was not just about Azure, with Microsoft seeing growth across multiple segments including in key focus areas such as the Teams collaboration platform, the transition from Windows 7 to Windows 10 and the Surface devices business.

The year wasn't without controversy, however, as Microsoft did an about-face after eliminating a popular partner benefit and publicly clashed with its biggest cloud rivals on several occasions.

What follows are the 10 biggest Microsoft news stories of 2019 affecting solution providers.

Get more of CRN's 2019 tech year in review.