Microsoft’s cloud jigsaw

[photo credit: NY Times]

I enjoyedBobbie Johnson’s piece in The Guardian yesterday about cloud computing and Microsoft’s lack of strategy here. Well, lack of visible strategy I would say and though Bobbie goes down the Yahoo route to look for answers, that’s a bit of a red herring in my opinion. Sure, Yahoo would be a part of a cloud strategy but I don’t think it’s the natural answer to where Bobbie is looking what we’re doing relative to Amazon Web Services and Google App Engine. For that I’m surprised Bobbie didn’t venture in to looking at Live Mesh which has been big news this last week and holds some of the answers as Jack Schofield noted. I say some, because more of this will come to light at the PDC this year. Live Mesh as a platform is an important part of this story but there are other pieces too.

Take a look at our datacenter rollout. This has gotten more publicity recently and if you think of cloud computing, it’s a good place to look. The FT holds some clues. A $500m investment in a Dublin datacenter and several others of similar size in the US runs contrary to lack of investment Bobbie talks of.

What is different here though (and Bobbie has the clue in his piece) is the propaganda war. Lets call it “the Ozzie factor”.

In the past, Microsoft would have gotten out in front of this stuff much more and talked about our plans with excitement and chest beating. I think we’ve learnt from that approach and seem to err more on the side of talking when we have something ready to talk about. It’s very much the Ozzie way. Go to the Wharton interview and search for the word criticism. Then read on. You’ll see what I mean.

Despite this approach, lots of pieces of the cloud jigsaw are out there – in fact I laid out some of the pieces last week. Those with a keen eye beyond the gratuitous Yahoo angle will see that Ray has been doing the same for over 2 years now.

If you’re prepared to do a little more than take a cursory glance, the story is out there.

Comments

• Anonymous
  May 02, 2008
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  May 02, 2008
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  May 04, 2008
  Hi Bobbie - I didn't get the Twitter response. Chewed by Twitter perhaps? With respect to the flip response, yep it's much easier from where I sit but is there any fun for you guys in being handed a completed jigsaw? I suspect not :) I should have realised that the print deadlines may have meant you couldn't include Mesh. Therein is the power of the web though - an appended version on the website maybe? As for the strategy that makes Microsoft a part of the Web, Live Mesh is a big part of that but you need to look beyond the sync of files and documents hence my underlining of the word platform in my post. it's much more than Office online and given we've shown a Mac client for Mesh already I'd argue it's a remarkably open effort.Think beyond documents and think devices and also developers. I think that's where much of the story is. As I've said though, Mesh is easier to understand when seen rather than talked about so perhaps I could drop by sometime and show you.

• Anonymous
  May 04, 2008
  The comment has been removed