Shares of Microsoft (NASDAQ:$MSFT) jumped by 11.7%, nearly 12% in the month of October. The cause of Microsoft’s 12% jump? Its strong fiscal first-quarter 2018 release near the end of the month.

Investors were pleased to see the company’s total revenue increased by 12% year over year to a whopping $24.5 billion. Additionally, the company’s net income also jumped by 16%. Its sales results from the productivity and business processes segment- comprised mainly of its Office products- grew by an additional 28%. But, the real star of the report was Microsoft’s cloud computing services unit.

Microsoft’s 12% jump wasn’t the only news. Their commercial cloud annualized revenue run rate hit $20.4 billion in the quarter, reaching a goal that CEO Satya Nadella, set back in 2015. Concurrently, its commercial cloud business was just $6.3 billion, but the company’s efforts over the past two years has rendered Microsoft a dominant player in the space against arching rivals such as Amazon (NASDAQ:$AMZN) and Google (NASDAQ:$GOOGL). Microsoft’s bottom line saw gross margins of 57%.

Naturally, investors took notice of such stellar margins, have been told to expect more of the same.

Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said, ” We remain committed to material improvement in our commercial cloud gross margin percentage. Margin performance is variable quarter to quarter, driven by revenue mix and seasonality as well as the timing of infrastructure spend. We expect continued year over year margin improvement and sequential trends consistent with prior years.”

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