It is anticipated that sometime this week – chicken giblets thrown at the wall and patterns interpreted have failed to identify a definite day – Microsoft will make an announcement about it’s online cloud computing base called Azure. This will allow developers to develop and run applications remotely and Microsoft has already opened data centres in Washington D.C and San Antonio, Texas. Additional data centres are planned for Chicago and Dublin.
This follows hot on the heels of Google’s announcement last week that it was launching a new operating system called Chrome based on as Linux base, so the battle between the Big Two is getting interesting.
It is also anticipated that sometime this year MS will announce an online version of its office suite but this will be a paid for service unlike the offerings from Google and Zoho. Analysts at Gartner predict that 80 percent of Fortune 1000 companies in the US could be paying for Internet computing services by 2012 so Microsoft is placing a good bet that the multi-nationals, if they consider a cloud computing future, will want to get into bed with something they know and have replied on in the past – and be prepared to cough up the cash for it.
So, will we see a rapid switch to everyone running cloud based systems? Absolutely not. In the UK local and national government departments, alongside other public sector and a good smattering of private organisations are so heavily wedded to Microsoft in terms of support and familiarity that a move away from the security and familiarity of Microsoft is unthinkable.
What I think what we will see is a move to “toes in the water” experimentation taking place, particularly in the public sector where partnerships and collaboration between bodies are increasing and where sharing of non-sensitive documentation and information could occur in the cloud.
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