Microsoft Declares War on Twilio With a New Cloud Service

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) recently launched Azure Communication Services, an extension of Azure's cloud platform which enables developers to add video, voice calls, chat, and text messages to websites, applications, and mobile platforms. Instead of building those features from scratch, developers can simply add a few lines of code from Microsoft's API (application programming interface) and outsource the feature to Azure. Microsoft's strategy likely sounds familiar, since Twilio (NYSE: TWLO) provides similar cloud-based communication tools for developers.