Microsoft has it head in the Cloud
Yes, Microsoft is planning to use the “Cloud” in a big way; and that’s a good thing. Cloud computing is getting a lot of press as the next evolution of accessing applications. Basically, instead of residing on your computer, the apps exist on the Internet, or in the Cloud. One of the primary advantages is the ability for a dispersed workforce to collaborate in real time using these online apps. Microsoft is planning to move even further with this and is integrating the cloud and your computer-based apps. One of their new developments is Microsoft Azure, which will provide a way for a company to bring it’s local apps to the cloud. One of their nearly ubiquitous apps, Microsoft Office, will be moving to the Cloud too, but it won’t be supplanting the local version on your machine, but will complement it serving as a mechanism for sharing document. This sounds a lot like Google Docs where you can work collaboratively on documents, but on a much larger scale, with much more ability.
I really like this concept, especially the ability to collaborate in real time. For now Microsoft is concentrating on Enterprise scale production, but it certainly seems like they are on the forefront of a new direction for using apps in a new and better way.
Microsoft has an announcement detailing the developer’s press conference where this was all announced. There is a lot of information, and a long but elucidating video there.
