Microsoft: Enterprise customer growth accelerates private cloud strategy
From Mary Jo Foley:
Microsoft is making a number of announcements around tools and database tweaks for its Azure cloud platform at this week’s TechEd conference.
But I’m more interested in some of the more subtle clues I’ve been picking up about the Softies’ future cloud strategies and directions here.
First, Microsoft execs are moving away from using the public/private cloud lingo in favor of standard/dedicated. This is a well-calculated trial balloon.
Currently, Microsoft uses “Standard” to refer to the versions of its Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) Microsoft-hosted cloud apps that run in a shared hardware/multitenant configuration. The Softies use “Dedicated” to refer to BPOS cloud apps that run on hardware that is dedicated for a single customer.
The Standard/Dedicated distinction makes it clear that it’s the hardware that is the focus of how Microsoft plans to offer customers public (shared) vs. private (non-shared) cloud infrastructure and applications.
Some of Microsoft’s server partners already offer large customers the option of buying dedicated shipping containers full of servers, storage and cooling mechanisms so they can run Windows Server, SQL Server and Systems Center themselves or via partners — with the Distibuted Data Toolkit allowing them to take advantage of some of the provisioning, servicing and other functionality that makes a dedicated set-up a “cloud.”
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Category: Competition, Executives, Microsoft, New Products, Pricing, Resources, Strategy
