Microsoft promises Windows Azure savings

Microsoft still isn't quite ready to talk pricing for Windows Azure, but the company says it is increasingly confident there is room for it to make money at the same time customers can cut the cost out of running software on their own servers.

Speaking at a Thomas Weisel investor conference, Microsoft general manager Doug Hauger acknowledged that his case would be more convincing if he could share the hard numbers and promised that those would be coming soon. The talk was streamed on Microsoft's investor relations Web site.

Microsoft general manager Doug Hauger

(Credit: Microsoft)

Windows Azure is, essentially, a cloud-based version of Windows that allows developers to write programs that run off of servers that run in Microsoft's data centers.

"People are interested in pricing," Hauger said. "Before they make a decision they want to understand 'is there an economic savings?'... Us saying that (there is) is not necessarily helpful."

Microsoft announced its plans for Windows Azure at its Professional Developers Conference in October and opened the service up for limited testing. The company updated the Azure test code last month.

Hauger reiterated that, in general, Microsoft will price Windows Azure services via a pay-as-you-go model that he promised will be "very, very price competitive" with rivals such as Amazon. Customers will also be able to prepay for Azure usage to get some discounting, he said.

The slowing economy, Hauger said, is actually helping when it comes to pushing large companies. Companies that had been hung up on security and privacy issues are now trying to suss out how those concerns balance out with the economic savings that cloud computing can offer.

"With the current economic situation, it has become fairly evident to me that companies are becoming far more pragmatic," he said. "In the small and medium (business) space, companies are looking about adoption anyways."

Hauger acknowledged that the shift to cloud computing is not just disruptive for Microsoft and its customers, but also for those that have made their living selling Microsoft software.

"There is, I think, concern," Hauger said. "People are used to, in many cases, selling a piece of boxed software and making money right then."

Hauger also noted that there are a limited number of companies that are going to have the software talent and budget to be players in the cloud-computing market.

"I would speculate it's not going to be hundreds (of companies)," Hauger said. "It's going to be two, three, four--something like that."

[bj1126]

I think Microsoft would be better off releasing the Azure services as a product itself so corporations and data centers could host their own Azure powered cloud.

[tgrenier]

Anyone can buy some hardware, plug it into the internet, and charge people for using it. Azure isn't a product, it's a service. At least that's how I see it.

[Penguinisto]

LOL! Cisco promises money savings too... yet it still costs a mint to get hold of a core router. Oracle promises that you save money, all while paying $40k in licensing per processor to do it.

I don't care who the corp is - it's marketing BS until they can prove it.

[t8]

Google should be better able to compete in this market because they can give their services away for free and receive income through their advertising network. Whereas if Microsoft were to do the same thing, they would be running at a loss. Google will probably charge for greater service, but anything free is more likely to attract new users who may upgrade if they find that it is very useful to them. Additionally, Microsoft data centers will be running Windows. That means more hardware and power than Google's highly efficient Goobuntu.

[shootthecops]

microsoft is very eager to get a foothold in the cloud, but google would be kicking m$ in the ribs if they released a linux based cloud service that operated at a 0$ loss 0$ profit business model that would attract more users to google products, ergo ad generation. it wouldnt benefit google directly, but it would benefit linux as their code would go back to it and it would HURT m$, which ultimately helps google in a big way.

[likexx]

That's interesting. So Google is just kind like a saint who sacrifice everything to provide service for free, and offer free lunc/high salary/building expensive data centers?

plus, why do u people thnk using Linux has advantages over Windows? you guys certainly don't know one of the Top 10 supercomputers is build on Windows.

Linux can be customized to fit any need, so for Windows.

[ppgreat]

I'm worried less about the price than I am the security.

To quote Dr. Szell: "Is it safe?"

[Super2online]

To find out the answer to that question, you will need to talk to some current Amazon Cloud based customers.

[t8]

To find out the answer, ask yourself if your Windows home computer is safe?
Then ask yourself "how safe is Linux", that is what Google is using.