Microsoft to announce Azure business plan next month
Microsoft plans to announce next month more of the business details behind its Windows Azure operating system.
The software maker unveiled the cloud-based operating system at a developer conference last year. It has said that some of the services, currently in free testing, will be released in final form this year. The company has said that it will run Azure applications in its data centers and will charge users based on the computing resources they need.
Watson
(Credit: Microsoft)In an interview on Monday, Corporate Vice President Allison Watson said that the company will get concrete about the financial details and say how partners can help sell Azure at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference which runs July 13-16 in New Orleans.
Until now, Microsoft has said merely that it plans to be "competitive with the marketplace" when it comes to pricing Azure.
Microsoft has also talked about perhaps having partners run Azure data centers in other locations, but Watson said that announcements on that front are probably further out.
"The economics of running a giant hosted business are different," Watson said. "They are interesting."
Microsoft is still trying to figure out exactly which businesses it wants to be in and which should be left to partners, she said. When Microsoft announced Azure, it said that all of the applications would be run from its data centers. However, Watson said the company is also looking at ways that partners can host cloud-based solutions.
"We've had some interesting conversations," Watson said.
Microsoft already competes directly with its hosting partners in other parts of its services business. For example, Microsoft offers online versions of SharePoint and Exchange, but also has partners that host their own copies of those products for customers.
Even in a world where Microsoft is selling services as much as software and using the Internet to deliver many of those products, Watson says that partners remain key to Microsoft's strategy.
"Partners have been our secret ingredient for how we grow and how we get things done," Watson said.
She noted that some of the key growth areas of technology--virtualization, mobility, and unified communications are places where customers need the skills of a partner as opposed to buying a software or service "off the shelf."
Even many of Microsoft's longtime competitors, folks with big internal sales efforts like IBM and Oracle, are starting to place more emphasis on the role of partners, she said. Even Google, she said, is starting to get in the partner game, announcing a program earlier this year.
For Microsoft, it continues to invest in that area despite the economy, Watson said.
While Microsoft has cut some from its internal field sales ranks, Watson said the company has actually added some to its partner sales channel in hopes that third parties might be able to pick up some of the slack on the sales front.
And while the overall enterprise software business is projected to be roughly flat this year, Watson notes that rate is better than on the hardware side. Since last October, Microsoft has been trying to convince partners that selling Microsoft's software can be a bright spot in an otherwise tough economy.
As for the Azure push, Watson didn't want to give away too much more. In the mean time, below is an interview I did with Ray Ozzie when Azure was unveiled. He also spoke about his cloud-based vision in a recent speech at the Churchill Club in Silicon Valley.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
@ Sumatra-Bosch - people are people - everywhere. If you dislike MS so intensely, the least you could do is post some coherent argument for that. It would be off-topic in an article about Azure, but at least it wouldn't just be a hate-filled sentance like the one you just posted.
He just closes his eyes and thinks of the money.
"I am getting heaps of money, I am getting heaps of money."
You just can't help yourself, can you? Remember what I told you about your credibility?
Here is a challenge. Lets keep the comments on topic and not post that Apple is better or that "Microsoft sucks".
As for Windows Azure. I am not so sure it will take off. In the long run, it would cost more then just having a computer with a OS installed on it.
Think about it. Why is the Web so rich and and Windows not? Because the Web is a platform that is owned by no one and everyone and therefore all can compete fairly and innovate. On windows you run the risk of becoming the next Netscape. VC's gave up funding companies developing Windows apps for this reason.
So people who hate Microsoft usually have a good reason and they are allowed to show their true feelings. They are usually developers because they are aware of what Microsoft is really like and they have to support Microsoft's crappy browser which isn't very standards compliant. This costs everyone but Microsoft and thus we have another reason to dislike them.
Google, Salesforce, and Amazon have been doing this for some time.
Think of Google Docs, or Picasa and then imagine thousands of apps on demand.
basically from anywhere you want you can log into an account online which will probably look like a desktop/OS or something which you can use apps you have installed on it or "services" you pay for from anywhere you log in from
it will be sort of like logging in remotely to another computer, everything is running on the remote computer but you are seeing and controlling it from wherever you are, only difference is the "remote computer" is on microsofts servers
there seems to be so little interest in this right now and that interview was so damn booooring, I can't really see this being any kind of hit at all, besides google will probably offer everything microsoft does online for free anyway and they already have a nice user base
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Azure
ok i read it... what was all wrong??
you do log into an OS that is located on microsofts servers and its has aps/services you can use
please explain?
and pay attention to the fact that i said "sort of like" and then explained loggin into a remote computer, i was not sayign that is actually how it is i was trying to paint a puicture using similarity
and i was just tryign to explain it to someobne who had no idea
but most of my understanding comes from these type of articles as i have had no other interest in reading about it myself until now so if they are all misinformed i guess i am as well
I'm tired of being in a permanent facepalm whenever one of these anemic articles comes out.
- by RogerJennings June 16, 2009 11:10 AM PDT
- Ina,
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(16 Comments)My understanding was that Microsoft was to announce the terms of its Service Level Agreement for Azure, as well as pricing, at the Partners conference. While these probably are interdependent, was anything mentioned about the SLA in the interview?
--rj
http://oakleafblog.blobspot.com