As many of you are likely aware, last week Ray Ozzie announced that Azure (Microsoft’s cloud service) would go into full production on January 1st, 2010. Azure is interesting because Microsoft wants to keep the paradigm of desktop OS’s as a key part of the architecture with “the cloud” as an adjunct in what they call the “three screens and a cloud” vision. This vision is important, because it makes the cloud real for consumers and makes it more understandable and accessible to the general populace. Project “Dallas” also re-affirms Microsoft’s commitment to cloud computing as a whole, Microsoft unveiled just enough details to make the project interesting – i.e. data-as-a-service.
For all the “evil empire” slag that Microsoft gets, people tend to forget, or ignore, what happens when Microsoft embraces a technology and tries to dominate that market – the technology just gets easier to adopt and becomes more real.
This is an important milestone in the development of the entire “cloud story”. Let’s be clear – Microsoft, due to their size and market position, does not have the need to innovate or invent new paradigms. All they have to do, and what they are good at, is step into nascent markets that are at the edge of becoming mature enough to explode. This is generally a moment of truth for any incumbents, as Microsoft can and does take advantage of their massive resources in an all out war for dominance. Once they ‘put their toes in the water’, they slowly wage a war of attrition on the incumbents, and buy all the best players and minds, until eventually their technology is pervasive. We have seen this strategy in effect to great success over the years. Remember the browser wars, Database (SQL?), ERP, CRM, Content Management (Sharepoint), Audio Devices (Zune), Console Gaming (XBox) and the list goes on.
So what’s the moral of the story? When Microsoft wades into the game, it’s a very strong sign that it’s time to get with the program and adopt this emerging pardigm.
Tags: cloud, cloud computing, Cloud Monitoring, Private Cloud, Public Cloud, virtualization
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Excellent points about Microsoft and why they really area a leading indictor of new paradigms. A good read.
Agreed. You summarize Microsoft very well. Of course in today’s Internet there is Google, which I believe is a big threat to Microsoft and well one might suggest anyone.