IBM and Microsoft reported their latest quarterly results this week, and both have made hay about the progress they have made in converting on-premise sales into recurring cloud ones.

First off, IBM posted an impressive second quarter, while continuing to make progress on the cloud front. Total group GAAP pre-tax income was up 14% and operating (non-GAAP) pre-tax income rose 11%.

Total group revenue hit $20bn, up 4% on the same quarter last time (up 2% when adjusting for currency)

Over the last 12 months, up to the end of the second quarter, IBM said total “cloud revenue” had reached $18.6bn – up 23% on the preceding 12 months.

Like Microsoft, for instance, IBM does not break down specific cloud sales in its latest results, but like all major vendors cloud business is seen as a key indicator as to how well they are doing in transitioning from traditional on-premise to service business.

“We delivered strong revenue and profit growth in the quarter, underscoring IBM’s progress and momentum in the emerging, high-value segments of the IT industry,” said Ginni Rometty, IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer. “More clients are engaging IBM on their journey to the cloud, and deploying IBM Cloud, Watson AI, analytics, blockchain and security solutions.”

Of that total cloud revenue over the last 12 months of $18.6bn, $8.2bn came from hardware, software and services to enable customers to implement hybrid cloud solutions across public, private and multi-clouds, said IBM. And $10.4bn was “delivered as-a-service”.

In the second quarter, sales from analytics increased 7% to $5.4bn; revenues from mobile increased 5% to $1.3bn, and business from security jumped 81% to $1bn.

Global Business Services sales (including consulting, global process services and application management) were $4.2bn in the quarter, up 2%. IBM ended the second quarter with $11.9bn of cash on hand. Debt totalled $45.5bn, including global financing debt of $31.1bn.

Over at Microsoft, for the fouth quarter Microsoft said total revenue was $30.1bn, an increase of 17% on the same quarter last year. Operating income was up 35% to $10.4bn.

“We had an incredible year, surpassing $110bn [for the 12 months ended 30 June] in revenue as a result of our teams’ relentless focus on customer success and the trust customers are placing in Microsoft,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “Our early investments in the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge are paying off, and we will continue to expand our reach in large and growing markets with differentiated innovation.”

Microsoft returned $5.3bn to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases in the fourth quarter, an increase of 16% compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2017.

Office commercial products and cloud services sales in the quarter increased 10%, driven by Office 365 commercial revenue growth of 38%. Office consumer products and cloud services revenue increased 8% and Office 365 consumer subscribers increased to 31.4m.

Dynamics products and cloud services quarterly revenue increased 11% driven by Dynamics 365 revenue growth of 61%. Server products and cloud services business increased 26%, driven by Azure revenue growth of 89%.

Windows commercial products and cloud services sales increased 23%, driven by an increased volume of multi-year agreements and a mix of products that “carry higher in-quarter revenue recognition”, said Redmond.