The software giant Microsoft has unveiled a computing service called Windows Azure that allows companies to use its data centres to run their web applications. The move represents a radical change in focus for the company as it bids to become a player in the rapidly expanding business of 鈥渃loud computing鈥�.
In recent years a number of companies have successfully made software available over the internet. The term cloud computing is used to describe the concept of relying on the internet to provide the software you need rather than running it on your own PC.
Windows Azure is part of a far-reaching programme to reinvent the company. Microsoft has traditionally built its business selling software to run on local machines 鈥� both computer servers and personal computers. In recent years, however, it has invested billions of dollars in data centres for web-based services.
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Windows Azure will allow other companies to run services from Microsoft鈥檚 data centres. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a transformation of our strategy,鈥� says Ray Ozzie, Microsoft鈥檚 chief software architect, who replaced Bill Gates as Microsoft鈥檚 top software guru in 2006.
鈥淩ight now, we are still in the early adopter phase of cloud computing, but I think this one will ultimately be really, really big,鈥� says Ozzie.
Playing catch-up
Microsoft has been forced to sit up and take note of because of the success of companies of various companies offering cloud-based services that compete with Microsoft鈥檚 traditional products. For example, Google offers word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software over the cloud 鈥� a metaphor for the internet.
Others have built a sophisticated infrastructure for cloud computing. Amazon, for example, has its own powerful data centres, but sells processing power and data storage in these centres to others so that they can run their own web-based software from there.
鈥淚鈥檇 like to tip my hat to Jeff Bezos and Amazon,鈥� said Ozzie, referring to the online retailer鈥檚 founder and chief executive. 鈥淎cross the industry, all of us will stand on their shoulders.鈥�
Research firm IDC expects spending on cloud-computing services to grow nearly threefold to about $42 billion by 2012. Spending growth on cloud computing will also accelerate over the next few years, making up as much as 25% of the increase in 2012.
Rare shift
And although Microsoft comes late to this area, it has a number of advantages over existing players that may allow it to cash in on this growth. It has deeper pockets, longer relationships with third-party developers and more expertise in building software platforms.
One problem that developers face when writing software for cloud computing services is working out how to share the processing tasks between several machines. Microsoft says Windows Azure differs from rival cloud-computing offerings because it balances the workload itself.
Azure allows the developer to focus purely on writing online applications without worrying about data centre failures, power outages or other potential problems, says Microsoft.
Neil MacDonald, a vice president at research firm Gartner says that making changes at a company the size of Microsoft is always difficult. 鈥淏ut this is one of these times that the battleship turns around for Microsoft,鈥� he says 鈥淭his is the direction that the industry is heading.鈥�
