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Microsoft's Cloud is called Windows Azure!




I dined with a MSFT's exec at the recent Gartner summit in Amsterdam and got to know that they had a hard time convincing the stage shy Ozzie on the front stage. I personally have been waiting very anxiously to get this "Groovy" guy on the center stage.

Anyways we welcome Windows Azure.

Microsoft Corp took the wraps off a new computing service that allows companies to use its data centers to run their Web applications in a bid to become a player in the so-called "cloud computing" trend.

Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief software architect, said on Monday it will start previewing "Windows Azure," a platform that allows third-party Web developers to host, manage, calculate and store data for applications running on the Internet.

"It's a transformation of our software. It's a transformation of our strategy," Ozzie said at the Professional Developer's Conference, Microsoft's annual gathering of third-party engineers to detail the company's future plans.

Ozzie, who replaced Bill Gates as Microsoft's top software guru in 2006, is spearheading the company's push into "cloud computing," a trend that taps into computing power in distant data centers and delivers applications over the Internet.

Traditionally, software has run on a single computer's hard drive, but as Internet connections became faster and more reliable, companies started to deliver software as an online service by using the computing power of the "cloud," a network of powerful computer servers accessed over the Web.


Reuter reporting and here's Microsoft's Azure site.

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