Why Microsoft Windows Azure is a threat to Google
By Charlotte Dunlap
Microsoft’s new features announced last week to its cloud computing platform, Azure, gives developers the option to build applications in the cloud via Microsoft’s data centers, rather than in a company’s server.
Giving customers this sort of flexibility in IT and software development is important to customers looking for ways to reduce costs, bandwidth demands and management responsibilities.
Flexibility in delivery models is also Microsoft’s key differentiator over cloud giant Google.
Cloud computing has become a key piece of an enterprise’s IT strategy, typically used in a hybrid (cloud plus on-premise) model of computing that offers customers the best of both worlds: the ability to keep their data on-premise, while leveraging the cloud’s accelerated software development speeds and lower costs by eliminating the need to invest in ongoing on-premise hardware and software.
A common example of hybrid is being able to develop applications and test them in the cloud before releasing them onto internal networks.
This scenario gives Microsoft ( MSFT – news – people ) a major advantage over cloud-only hosted service providers Google ( GOOG – news – people ) and Amazon, one that creates great opportunities for Microsoft’s broader partner ecosystem.
Developers can use the same development tools, frameworks and execution environment for either cloud or on-premise applications. Developers can build a single application that leverages the cloud’s scalability for transactional processing while supporting the security of on-premise data storage.
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Category: Competition, Google, Microsoft, Strategy
