Microsoft's 'Head' is in the Cloud

According to the BBC, Microsoft has unveiled a cloud computing service, in which data and applications will not be stored on individuals' computers.

The new platform, dubbed Windows Azure, was announced at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles. The platform was described by Microsoft's chief software architect Ray Ozzie as "Windows for the Cloud". The framework will be offered alongside the next Windows release, Windows 7.

The aim is to allow developers to build new applications which will live on the internet, rather than on their own computers.

Now this really is quite big news. It moves Microsoft more firmly into the 'Cloud' and brings them nicely into a more direct toe-2-toe square-off with Google and their growing online 'apps' business. I confirmed that the news was big by checking out Steve Clayton's blog. He was so up for it you would have thought that Liverpool had knocked in four goals against Chelsea, not just one.

Steve also added an extra dimension to the announcement. Namely some more background and credibility to Microsoft's direct investment into datacenters of an 'unbelievable scale'. He has posted many times about this investment before. I just hope they leave some room for Pingar's servers.

As part of our own ongoing Microsoft talks, we hope and expect to sit on some of the NTT global backbone which I think is shared in part, by Microsoft. Having looked at Pingar's own anticipated server requirements as traffic builds up, that adds up to more than a few racks.

Azure has another meaning; it's 'Sky Blue'. Not much room for clouds there, but I do think this announcement might just have some take on Microsoft's longer term development strategy. As ever though, only time will tell.