Comments on: What Ray Ozzie sees in Azure's cloud

After several years of toiling away in secret--with only brief public appearances--Microsoft's chief software architect shares what he's been up to.

[Mr_Technical_Dude]

The problem here is that until all network and computer chips and/or which require a flow of electrons are supplied internally with same at the chip or component level that a vulnerability to complete disruption will exist.

[Penguinisto]

Hooray! The same insecure script-***-code mentality that pervades .NET in the local space (see also VB) will now be wide open to the planet...

Meanwhile, I doubt a smart business is going to stick their vital data into any cloud, for many reasons:

* First off, the idea that you rent your infrastructure is IMHO highly unappealing. A/P (or MSFT) screws up once, and suddenly you're dead in the water until the money situation gets ironed out. It already happens now, with MSFT licensing payment issues between Dell and MSFT as a huge ferinstance.

* Second up, any business that has more than two or three servers deals in large amounts of data. Shoving 1TB+ a month over a business DSL line is going to make life Hell in an awful hurry (and with ISP's pushing to institute caps on anything that doesn't come with an SLA, things aren't likely to be much better). For larger businesses? Forget it. For instance my employer has 10 Gb fiber strung all over the place for a reason - and I don't care how much cheaper than SAN gear MSFT (or Amazon) turns out to be, even amortized - the bandwidth bill alone would more than make up for it.

* To steal an idiom from Ballmer: Security, Security, Security. Ina, you really should've asked about security - boilerplate PR answer or no. MSFT (among others, to be fair) have a history of getting its own IP (source code) stolen and posted publicly (or sold to the highest bidder) - I doubt that businesses, no matter how small, want that same kind of treatment happening through means beyond their control.

* Support - it takes far less time to call/page your local admin and get it fixed, than to have to deal with tech support - even (especially?) from MSFT... and it'll end up costing more to get that support.

* One size does not fit all.

...I'm sure there are many more reasons, but those above are more than sufficient, no matter who the provider is.

/P

[Penguinisto]

PS: Fix your obscenity filter - I didn't realize that a Latin word in context is suddenly to be bleeped out. :/

/P

[rhg]

Microsoft have an advantage initially by being the supplier of the internal operating system for most of the users that would be using the Cloud.

However, I believe that Amazon has several advantages that will make them dominant.

1. Microsoft have too much existing software baggage from their network server environment. Amazon are entirely Internet-based.

2. Microsoft are very ungiving to their customers. Amazon have a reputation (and I know this from personal experience) of making the returns and credit [process a pleasure, and guaranteeiing service levels. In other words, much more customer-responsive.

3. Amazon lives and dies on the web, and Amazon management understand the environment better than Microsoft management at every level. Microsoft management have Office, Windows Server, and Windows Vista etc as their major profit platforms, and their multiple levels of management understand these markets and environments much better than they understand the Internet. There is a learning barrier, where many people in Microsoft management will have to have their web epiphanies, and many mistakes will be made in the process.

4. Amazon has the hardware and network to make a Cloud fly. They have built the infrastructure very carefully, and I have a hunch that they have done a much bigger and better job than Microsoft. I will be watching closely for early glitches: who has to fix bugs, and whop works smoothly. After all, it would be in Microsoft's best interest to be in Cloud Computing, if only to make it so unreliable that their customers stay with their existing Microsoft servers.

5. It is easier for Amazon to find the best and brightest. The Microsoft reputation is to take the best and brightest and burn them out, trash them, then hire again. The bottom 50% are fired and replaced continuously. So for the very talented, the Amazon environment of encouragement and respect is much more appealing, I think, and the Microsoft Aura of the 90's has really got tarnished with their recent lack of performance.

Just a thought, but I see Amazon winning this one more easily than you might expect.

[lamorpa]

Why anyone would listen to anything Ray Ozzie says is beyond me: 1) His vision of the future allowed him to ride Lotus123 from 95 percent market share right down to non-existence. 2) His Groove Networks company went nowhere for over a decade, diluting the shares so much that when Microsoft bought then out (why o' why?????) everyone but Ray came out with absolutely nothing! (can you say screwed!!) What did Bill Gates see in him - maybe it's unlikely to have three complete failures in a row??

[gravy jones]

MSFT misses the boat again; news at eleven.

I'm an Applications Developer. I've come up using MSVC 5,6, Visual Studio 2002, 2003, 2005, and 2008. I've never wanted to code.NET. I started with C. I moved onto C++ and added MFC, ATL/COM, the STL and some WTL. It is not that I find anything in particular that is wrong with .NET it is just that I think it has factored out the elegance and art form of software development using C++. I think I would be down right bored coding in .NET. I'd rather write Javascript mixed into HTML than .NET

I can point out the reason too. If you look at the logic behind how .NET compares strings you will see a design by committee pattern. The problem is that for every string you compare, .NET does code page stuff and other slow system calls to make sure your data compares properly. As it stands, writing code that sorts data, one of the most common and necessary programming tasks, is woefully slow on .NET using the .NET framework. I can't imagine how a Database, written in .NET, would perform. A MSFT pundit would say, you don't write DB software using .NET. Why should I code anything in .NET? MSFT has schismed the consumer department with their software. They now are trying to schism the developer world by promoting tools that will make developers never achieve anything higher than applications (appliance) development. Many of our .NET only developers are amazed at the control and clarity of the code that can be written using MSFT's so-called outdated, unmanaged coding tools.

[bdennis410]

I believe in Cloud as the future. I worry about security.
I think application is limited to SMB/SOHO and consumers.
I think there will Internet layers, but whether stacked or parallel, even combinations- gov.net connects to business.net, but maybe not to edu.net , but mutually accessible.
I think future infrastrucre will be wireless-based, with the security problems that entails, but manageable,
I think cost will be, or should be, usage-based,
The currency of the future is figital, get over it!

Mediaman