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?
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Robert Scoble works at Fast Company.TV (title: Managing Director). Everything here, though, is his personal opinion and is not read or approved before it is posted. No warranties or other guarantees will be offered as to the quality of the opinions or anything else offered here.
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October 28th, 2008 at 10:16 am
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.
October 28th, 2008 at 10:49 am
when did anyone let me poop on their lawn?
October 28th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Awesome and Office on web, google…game over.
October 28th, 2008 at 11:03 am
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
October 28th, 2008 at 11:15 am
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.
October 28th, 2008 at 11:18 am
They announced Eclipse, PHP, Python and Ruby on Azure, that’s a lot of to play with…Office via Firefox browswer, pretty nice.
October 28th, 2008 at 11:24 am
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).
October 28th, 2008 at 11:29 am
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!
October 28th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
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.
October 28th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
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.
October 28th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Microsoft is the John McCain of computing: lots of promises, no performance.
October 28th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
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
October 28th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
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.
October 28th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
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.
October 28th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
define “poor”? :)
October 29th, 2008 at 6:42 am
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.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
I think Microsoft is once again late to the game.
November 18th, 2008 at 12:38 am
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. ;)