Comments on: So just what is running on Windows Azure?

In an interview, corporate VP Amitabh Srivastava talks about how Microsoft itself is thinking about shifting its own software into the cloud.

[Orion Blastar]

This looks promising, I just registered for the beta release.

I think that it will take things to Web 3.0 with Cloud Computing.

I'll give it a try and see how it works.

I would like to see Linux do the same thing, create a Linux Cloud computing, so it can compete with Microsoft.

[timber2005]

Thats a bit... i don't know the word. "Linux" is more like a genre of Operating System, with no one company in control, or with enough financial backing and programming power (waits for slam on those last two :-/ ) to support such a feat. If you were expecting Linux to be able to give the user the power to setup a server "within the cloud"... well that would be no more than a server on the web! A cloud based system would be multi-regional and redundant with hundreds of servers.

Did I misunderstand?

[JuggerNaut]

I feel that Google's Android will extend beyond the smart phone and deliver what you're dreaming of. Let's take this into perspective; Google is developing down the stack while Microsoft is developing up the stack. Both have been doing flybys for awhile with competing technologies. I don't think Google is going to let Microsoft monopolize another space and let Microsoft control the desktop no matter how the solution is delivered.

[Sumatra-Bosch]

Good god, he's insane. MSFT has turned the desktop into a horror of blue screens and performance anomalies, enforced by their bootloader monopolization. What masochist would want to repeat that nightmare on the cloud. Ozzie, renew your prescription!

[g15host]

How is this different than what PHP developers have been doing on the web with Linux based ISPs all over the world for years, other than the MSFT code-speak and the back-end and web software defined as official MSFT? I downloaded and installed the latest Visual Web Developer today, not only did it took forever, but when I tried to registered the product the automatic URL produced a empty page with the simple message "Sorry the server is too busy." I log in to my Hotmail account (now mail.live.com) and all my messages were gone. I'm sure this is just initial teething pain like Apple's MobileMe, but businesses should hope the MSFT cloud is more robust than that.

[mjconver]

Years from now freshman college marketing students are going to be studying this failure. Not for geeky technical reasons, but because "azure" is an obscure word that most English speakers can't pronounce, define, or even spell. "Windows Blue", not bad. "Windows Azure", no way. I'd love to have the money they spent on this badly conceived brand name.

[Riquez-001]

...that most Americans can't pronounce, define, or even spell.

There, I fixed that for you ;-)

[MarkAshton]

Dude - you're so provincial. Most people with who progressed beyond 8th grade are familiar with the word azure. I'm an American but it bugs the hell out of me when Americans seem to think that the American-english pronunciation of every word is THE 'correct' pronunciation. That's just dumb. Many brand names are pronounced differently by different people, especially those who have different native languages. Do you pronounced Mercedes the same way that a German or a Frenchman does? No. Does it matter? No. The only time a mispronunciation of a brand name is a problem is is the mispronunciation is somehow bad. Azure is not like that. What's 'worse' about 'ah-zoor' vs. 'azh-ur?" Stick to what you know best...whatever that may be.

[emmanuelhuna]

For anyone attempting to deploy scalable applications, Windows Azure is great. Way to go Microsoft, ignore the 7% of Linux/Apple fan boys and continue listening to the 90% of the market and developers that love your technology.

[Pishkado]

What's with the red sneakers, you ask? Old-timers may remember that the original Apple Mac materials, back in 1984, used a sneaker marketing document to show the integration between MacWrite and MacPaint, explaining how you could draw a sneaker in MacPaint and then paste the drawing into your MacWrite word processing document. Neat stuff for the day, though in black-and-white of course and a bit of a pain with shuttling floppies in and out of two drives. Wonder if it's homage, conscious or subconscious? (Microsoft was much more into Mac applications in the 80s than it is today. Word and Excel GUIs debuted on the Mac first. Programs such as Front Page and Flight Simulator had Mac versions at the time. Most Microsoft old-timers would remember that, even if they weren't personally involved.)

[nsmoly]

To commenters who mentioned LAMP (Linux+Apache+PHP+MySQL) -- Windows Azure actually does way more than you can possibly achieve with LAMP. It manages your apps in the cloud and automatically reallocates resources if you need more (or less, depending on the load). Also, it should be much easier to develop for it - you can actually create normal apps (and not custom made PHP hacks) that can also run on your desktop and deploy them to the cloud.

Also, with no big money backing open source world, I don't see how any open source analogy to Window Azure can be made any time soon. Unless, all open source users/devs collect money and buy their own datacenter. This is one area where only big companies can dominate the landscape.