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A Look At The Major Cloud Computing Players – Microsoft

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Cloud Computing is a hot topic in technology circles – the technology is consistently getting better and better, and more and more companies are coming into the cloud computing fold.

With so much going on in the cloud space, we wanted to provide a few blog entries designed to help you recognize some of the major players in the industry, and understand what they have to offer.

In this blog entry, we’ll focus on Microsoft.

Microsoft:

Microsoft primarily focuses on two areas in Cloud Computing:

– Microsoft Office 365:

This is the cloud version of Microsoft’s widely used Office suite.  In the cloud version of Office, users are able to access Office from anywhere and on a variety of devices – from smart phones to a work computer to a home laptop.

Office 365 also brings advances to collaboration tools – for instance, 365 users can see each other’s availability for scheduling, or work together through social networking.

– Windows Azure:

Windows Azure is Microsoft’s cloud platform, which provides a wide variety of services.  IT specialists can move a company’s existing applications into the Azure cloud, or develop new web applications using Azure’s proven technology.

In Conclusion:

Microsoft is bringing some of its staple products to the Cloud, and it will be interesting to see how companies move to adopt the new offerings over the next year.

Stay tuned to our blog for more perspectives on other Cloud players like Amazon Web Services, Google and Rackspace.

Application Hosting and Cloud Computing Future for SMBs

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I think this is a pivotal time for all of us who use, service or otherwise take an interest in technology. As you are all aware, Microsoft put out 2 version of their operating system in the last few year – Vista and Windows 7. While Vista proved to be a flop in my opinion, I believe the era of the OS and desktop computing is on the decline.

What does this mean for you?

I think what it means is that we will see less hype around the desktop, and the operating system. Yes, the MAC still does have a “cool” factor, however, when in comes to productivity at the workplace, cool may not be a substitute for fast, cost effective and available. And this is what The Cloud promises us. As we see widespread adoption of broadband across the US and other countries, and in the next few years we are also bound to see blanket, high-speed wireless coverage finally taking place, I believe more and more businesses will elect to move their computing environment to the cloud. Perhaps this full-on adoption will be slower with the larger companies who have their own, highly customized applications, lots of confidential data, entrenched IT departments, etc…but for the smaller, more agile firms out there, this should be a way forward.

The benefits are numerous:

  • Always On – access from any location 24/7
  • No upfront costs
  • No worries about upgrades or new releases
  • No “server down” situations (in a properly architected cloud environment redundancy should be in place)

..i can go on, but I think I have made my point. The technology will mature, and more and more businesses will find themselves using cloud computing in one way or another..Meanwhile, Spirinet has build a cloud computing and application hosting environment built with the small business in mind called AppsOnDemand. It’s core package includes Office 2007, file storage, email and other things that will serve as a starting point for most companies..And in case you need other apps, we can easily add them. Please check out our new product and provide any feedback, it is appreciated.