Atlassian says 'the cloud is its future' as it makes sweeping changes to its flagship products and pricing

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• Speaking at a TechCrunch event in San Francisco, Atlassian co-CEO Scott Farquhar announced a number of major changes to the way it sells its cloud-based services.

• The changes reportedly include the launch of new premium plans for its Jira Service Desk product and a free option for all Atlassian services.

• Atlassian's Anu Bharadwaj told Business Insider the changes are a sign the US$32 billion Australian-born software company sees cloud computing as a core part of its future.

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"We strongly believe cloud is our future," Atlassian's Anu Bharadwaj has told Business Insider following a raft of sweeping changes announced by her boss, co-CEO Scott Farquhar on Thursday.

Bharadwaj, who is head of cloud products at the US$32 billion Australian-born software company, said Atlassian is at a "turning point" as it starts to reap the benefit of big investments in cloud computing and makes its suite of cloud-based products and services a bigger focus.

"We believe cloud unleashes a fundamentally better way of working, especially in the teamwork area," Bharadwaj said, adding that over 90% of Atlassian's customers choose one of its cloud products.

The comments follow Farquhar's unveiling of new pricing plans at TechCrunch's Enterprise Sessions in San Francisco on Thursday.

The changes — which TechCrunch described as "maybe its biggest enterprise-centric release since the company’s launch" — include a new premium plan for its Jira Service Desk product, similar to plans previously announced for Jira Software Cloud and Confluence Cloud.

Farquhar also announced new 'data residency' controls for its enterprise clients to help them make sure data stays in certain geographic locations and a new customisable URL options for companies using its Jira and Confluence Cloud products.

Atlassian's Trello product, along with Opsgenie and Bitbucket, already have free versions. The company will now launch free entry-level versions of its Jira Software, Confluence, Jira Service Desk and Jira Core available to smaller teams, as well as major discounts for universities and charities.

The focus on the cloud is a major change in strategy for Atlassian, which started life as a provider of products intended to run on its clients own private servers.

As Business Insider's Rosalie Chan writes: "Amid the cloud revolution, it's been shifting its business model to catch up."

Considering the company just cracked US$1 billion in revenue in a single financial year, it's fair to say it's caught up pretty well.