Perhaps as an attempt to compete with Google, Microsoft is delving into the world of cloud computing, and reducing its current dependence on desktop-only software. Microsoft representatives introduced a new software platform known as Azure. The software is part of an overall strategy to shift the company’s presence to web-based software and services to compete with Google’s ever expanding a lineup of online-only products.
Azure has been developed as a cloud computing architecture that will run from Microsoft’s own dedicated servers. The company sees Azure as something of a game changer in the area of online services and software. Specifically, Azure will include many existing Microsoft products and services, and will be based on a streamlined Web-only version of the Windows operating system.
Increasingly, both large and small companies are showing interest in the concept of cloud computing, which uses hosted software to simplify communication and routine administrative tasks, the reducing costs. But so far, Google has been way out ahead of the competition, and the company’s Google Apps platform has become the de facto standard for organizational cloud computing.
In order to compete with Google, Microsoft needs a superior product and a range of services that can cut costs for organizations by simplifying e-mail, instant messaging, word processing and other basic software tools.
But although the business world has been looking very favorably upon the concept of cloud computing, it does have its shortcomings. For example, any work done in a web-based software environment can be lost if the central servers should crash. And although backup servers are routinely employed to protect against this eventuality, they are not 100% failsafe.
In the past several months Google has experienced these types of problems with its Google Apps service. A service outage last week left many businesses without access to e-mail, documents and other communications tools. In some areas the outage lasted longer than 24 hours, making customer service and other administrative tasks next to impossible.
In order to combat this potential problem, Microsoft has developed what it is referring to as the Azure Fabric Controller, which is designed to spread out information over several different servers. The idea is to be able to reroute services quickly if an individual server should go off-line.
Technically, Microsoft says that Azure will support a wide range of software standards already in place, including XML, SQL, .NET, and other proprietary and third-party services. Pricing for the Azure system has not yet been revealed, but it is expected to be comparable with the pricing structure of Google Apps.
