SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft wants to do big cloud business in its own facilities, but it also wants to be in companies’ existing data centers. Today at the Microsoft Cloud Briefing event, the company pulled the trigger on a “cloud platform system” in partnership with Dell.

That’s a big deal from a competitive perspective, because top competitors Google and Amazon don’t yet offer cloud-friendly hardware.

The hardware-software combination will be available starting next month, said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise group.

General Dynamics is using the combination product today, Guthrie said.

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