Microsoft Schemes to Get More Bots Running on Its Cloud

Microsoft said Tuesday that a forthcoming Azure cloud service will help developers build and deploy bots or chatbots easily. Bots, a hot, much-hyped topic of late, are pieces of software that work under the covers to let consumers perform tasks, such as ordering pizza, using their favorite chat or texting app. Microsoft's Azure Bot Service, now in preview, builds on the company's much touted Bot Framework, which aims to support all the popular chat and texting applications in the universe. "This is a full application, a managed platform that does all you need to host a bot," Microsoft executive vice president Scott Guthrie told Fortune. The service relies on Azure Functions, which like the Lambda service from Microsoft msft rival Amazon Web Services, lets developers quickly build in capabilities that are triggered by a user action or some sort of software trigger or event.