Just a semi-serious prediction. Remember how Microsoft used the Rolling Stones' "Start It Up" for Windows 95? The next big product for the Seattle software giant is a product named Azure, and I'm predicting another Stones' song, "Hey You, Get Off of My Cloud" to publicize the launch. The reason being - Azure is Microsoft's new cloud computing product.
Cloud computing is sometimes confused with grid computing, with the latter consisting of a loosely-connected group of computers partitioning a problem. Cloud computing refers to the use of the internet for the computational service with the user only providing a minimal client application. One example is Google Apps which is really software as a service. Instead of the user purchasing software licenses, the Google servers provide the software and computing resources. For more information, see 5 reasons why you should use Google apps.
Until now, Google and (surprise) Amazon have been the leaders in cloud computing. Amazon's website tells that hourly costs for a Windows 2003 server is $0.125 hour. (They also have Linux and Solaris operating systems available.) That computes to $250 for a 2,000 hour business year, assuming the service is used full time. It is not immediately clear how Microsoft's offering will be different than Amazon, although Microsoft Azure aims to re-define the OS gives some hints. Microsoft indicated there will be a mix of licensing available - users can license a cloud instead of a WIndows desktop, and there might even be an advertising-based licensing model. Microsoft To Unveil Windows 7, Cloud Computing Efforts Next Week indicates Microsoft is intrigued by a distributed cloud operating system, so the product offering should be noticeably different from Amazon.
Also buzzing this week at the Microsoft developer's conference was discussion of Windows 7. The successor to Vista is expected to be released at the end of next year. Like Vista, it too, seems to be a yawner.
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