Comments on: Microsoft to announce Azure business plan next month

Software maker, which has been testing its cloud-based OS, plans to use its partner conference to offer details on how it will get paid for hosting cloud-based applications.

[Sumatra-Bosch]

Poor Ray. Must be excruciating to have to pretend he isn't repulsed and appalled to deal with MSFT people every day.

[Mr. Dee]

I can understand critiquing of the products, but why the people? You have persons in the industry who have worked at various Companies (Apple, DEC, IBM, Adobe - even from the Open Source community), who end up working at Microsoft. Would describe them as being trouble to work for too?

[dhavleak]

And vice-versa as well.. (people from MS also end up working at places like Apple, Google, IBM, Sun, etc. etc.). In fact a while ago, Google and MS were getting into a tussle over Google poaching people from MS.

@ 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.

[t8]

Ray is like a food connoisseur who took a job working for McDonalds.

He just closes his eyes and thinks of the money.
"I am getting heaps of money, I am getting heaps of money."

[dhavleak]

@ t8

You just can't help yourself, can you? Remember what I told you about your credibility?

[McPlot]

And queue the Apple Zealots and people who hate Microsoft.
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.

[monkeyfun14]

But that would require them to act civilized for 30 seconds.

[t8]

Microsoft abused their monopoly and put good tech out of commission or business and then once they had you cornered, they charge inflated prices for inadequate software.

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.

[markredf150]

yeah...i don't get it...a cloud OS? how does that work?

[t8]

Apps hosted and delivered by the Web to any device.

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.

[mrcockrell]

@markredf150

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

[ncalishome]

Sorry mrcockrell, this is all wrong. CNET should really stop writing articles about cloud computing services because neither the authors or 99% of the readership seem to have any understanding of what it is or the audience it's for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Azure

[mrcockrell]

@ ncalishome

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

[mrcockrell]

by the way im not really arguing im actually interested in how i was wrong.. after reading the link you gave i still have the same understanding of it all

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

[ncalishome]

Ina, do you spend time reading the comments that articles about services like Azure and Amazon EC2 generate?... It seems pretty clear that very few have any clue what cloud computing is or what these different companies are really offering and who the target market is. It appears from your questions to Ray Ozzie in the video that you really don't get it either. I think you should research and write a well informed article about cloud computing in general: how it differs from the typical "web hosting" model and the type of audience it serves. Once you set forth this basic understanding you could put together a comprehensive look at how services from like likes of Amazon (EC2, S3, SimpleDB, etc), Microsoft (Azure), and Google (Gears) are being used and how they differ.

I'm tired of being in a permanent facepalm whenever one of these anemic articles comes out.

[RogerJennings]

Ina,

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