The $6.3 billion quarterly loss that Microsoft Corp. announced today briefly spooked investors, who sent shares down nearly 3 percent in immediate after-hours trading, but concerns quickly eased on assurances that the loss was thanks to a onetime $13 billion charge triggered by the new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Excluding that, the company beat analyst expectations on every front, and Microsoft stock was slightly up by the end of its analyst call. By all accounts, it was another solid quarter, particularly on the cloud computing front.

Revenue rose 12 percent, to $28.9 billion, from a year ago, well above analysts’ forecast of $20.41 billion. Excluding the tax charge, net income was $7.5 billion, or 96 cents a share. Analysts had expected 86 cents. “We had better-than-expected performance across all segments,” said Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood.

After trading in the doldrums for more than a decade, Microsoft stock is up 45 percent over the past year, reflecting the company’s generally strong performance in cloud computing and success at shifting its software business to a subscription model. Update: On Thursday, shares were rising a little under 1 percent.

“Microsoft just keeps showing success in modern business transformation,” said Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “The company is one of the few older tech companies that has been able to turn the corner and be relevant in the cloud, commercial artificial intelligence and the ‘internet of things.'”

The company’s closely watched cloud computing business continues to soar. Microsoft Azure revenue grew 98 percent year-over-year, marking the third straight quarter in which it has doubled. The overall Commercial Cloud business was up 56 percent to $5.3 billion. The Intelligent Cloud segment, which encompasses Microsoft infrastructure-as-a-service and cloud-based server products, is now a $7.8 billion business, nearly equaling the company’s cash-cow productivity applications business.

Those numbers exceeded the expectations of Wikibon analyst Ralph Finos, who had forecast $7.45 billion in revenue and 90 percent growth in Azure. “I don’t see anything on the horizon” that would slow Microsoft’s momentum, Finos said. Wikibon is a sister company of SiliconANGLE.

And the remarkable growth may have room to run, said Charles King, president and principal analyst at Pund-IT Inc. “Recent reports suggesting Azure is seizing share from AWS [Amazon Web Services Inc.] could spark additional adoption and interest among prospects that hadn’t considered Azure seriously in the past,” he said. “Cloud services continue to be a remarkable growth engine for the company.”

Sales of productivity and business process products rose 25 percent over the previous year, led by Office 365 commercial revenue growth of 41 percent. Microsoft now has 29.2 million Office 365 consumer subscribers. The Dynamics 365 line of enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management applications closed out their first full year with 67 percent growth.

However, the numbers clearly showed the profitability advantages of cloud computing. Despite faster growth, productivity products showed 9 percent growth in operating income while Intelligent Cloud profits surged 24 percent.

Microsoft is playing a “long game” in guiding customers from packaged licenses to the cloud,” King said. “It will take years, perhaps even generational changes, for the company’s tens of millions of users to transition.”

Other personal computing products, which is a large segment that comprises most of Microsoft’s desktop line, grew 2 percent and income declined slightly. However, sales of Windows through original equipment manufacturers showed the largest growth in the past six quarters, surging 11 percent. Microsoft’s commitment to rapidly updating desktop operating systems to protect against threats like the recent Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities are helping drive enterprise Windows sales higher, said Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella (pictured).

In a subtle jab at cloud rival AWS, Nadella said the company’s lineup of cloud, desktop, mobile and embedded software gives it “an architectural advantage to where the world is going. You train on the cloud and score on the edge,” he said. Azure Stack, the on-premises version of Azure, just closed its first full quarter of sales since shipping last summer and “we’re seeing incredible customer demand,” he added.

Looking ahead to the current quarter, Hood said Microsoft expects Productivity and Business Processes revenues should increase 13 percent, Intelligent Cloud sales should grow 14 percent and PC-related business will be up about 5 percent.

Nadella called out Microsoft’s new commitment to open-source software, noting that the SQL Server database management system on Linux is “off to a strong start” with more than 5 million downloads. King called that attitude an indication of the less pugnacious attitude that has taken hold at the company.

“Nadella understands that by helping customers live with heterogeneous computing, Microsoft can curry favor without capitulating and improve its position without resorting to a wrecking ball,” he said. “That’s good news for everyone involved.”

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