Microsoft tells Google, Amazon, Adobe, Rackspace, & Apple: “stay off our lawn”

by on October 28, 2008

Yesterday Microsoft announced a new set of cloud-based services, called Windows Azure. Today they announced Windows 7. I’m tracking the news here, will have more to say later.

What do you think?

  • They may be a couple of turns late, but Microsoft usually makes a good appearance. Interesting comment about trailing in everything "except spreadsheets." As long people keep spreadsheets making money and getting paid through spreadsheets, I guess they're in good shape. ;)
  • I think Microsoft is once again late to the game.
  • It amazes me how poor Microsoft's products are... and they've been doing it longer!

    How ever over hyped the "cloud" concept might be, if this ever were to be a huge thing, think of the affects it would have on IT jobs. Companies would no longer require massive server rooms to house their apps, in turn leaving no need for people to maintain them. All they need is someone who can keep the plug connected to the modem.
  • toivo
    define "poor"? :)
  • Dawn
    It amazes me how poor Google's products are. They feel VERY primitive compared to MS tools. I think MS will blow them out of the water in water spaces they choose to compete.

    But I, too, believe "the cloud" is way overblown.
  • Raghu Kulkarni
    I think this whole cloud concept is over hyped, and agree with Larry Ellison in this regard. Cloud has a role to play, but is limited in size and scope, and not enough to create multi billion $ business as O Reilly has mentioned.

    Cloud services purely for storage and computational purposes have very limited appeal for enterprises, mostly due to the latency issues involved. Cloud for specific functions like email/contacts/calendar/pictures/reporting/social networking will be huge, in fact it is already huge. Look at google's breadth of services.

    My guess is that the Microsoft office docs will probably beat google docs, simply because microsoft owns office.
  • So another words, Microsoft kindly says to everybuddy:

    A' yo, quit trying to jiggle my babyholders -


    The babyholders are already being jiggled just fine...lol
  • Stephen Greene
    Microsoft is the John McCain of computing: lots of promises, no performance.
  • I'm psyched for Windows 7, personally.

    Microsoft may come around to the Google method, I'm thinking. Everything is given away as a come-on for the core product. Google has keyword search, Microsoft has the OS and Office.
  • davemall
    Microsoft is now firmly and deeply entrenched as an industry and technology follower in almost every market. However, I do think they're still the leader in spreadsheets.
  • Well, at least we know who will win out of Amazon and Microsoft, despite Microsoft's cool features in Office Live, the overall costing is going to go in Amazon's favour!
  • Jan
    I think Microsoft has already an OS for the Cloud, they have the infrastructure now. I thought Google would be the first in that field (I mean an OS designed for the cloud).
  • edgar
    They announced Eclipse, PHP, Python and Ruby on Azure, that's a lot of to play with...Office via Firefox browswer, pretty nice.
  • Looks very neat and good for a whole host of reasons. That said, the whole azure concept is heavily embedded into Windows/Microsoft (obviously) and so for me doesn't give me much to ponder since my job revolves around linux servers and open source stuff. Would of loved them to take on Amazon as for a large portion of the web community they are cut off from this announcement.
  • hmmm...

    Would love to know if cloud computing matters were debated during Bill Gates' tenure and did he resist the change.


    One has to wonder if Vista did not catch on - why will Windows 7 be any more attractive given this current economy
  • edgar
    Awesome and Office on web, google...game over.
  • when did anyone let me poop on their lawn?
  • All of these services are now racing to the bottom. Where is the business model except to slash the rates until they get to $0.00. The idea of application lock in is a good one, but I think that all of these companies will ultimately have to give most of this away to get customers.
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