Microsoft’s Strategy In The Private-Cloud Computing World The private-cloud computing world has been bombarded with a barrage of service providers. In the thick of this barrage, Microsoft has emerged with innovative and accessible ideas. To start off, Microsoft’s private-cloud platform includes the general purpose windows server and the system center, which is optimized for top management. The thing which makes Microsoft different from other private-cloud service providers is that they have come up with a fourfold strategy that easily surpasses any other competitor in the market. The first fundamental of their strategy revolves around the notion that all the infrastructure
Microsoft Cloud
Microsoft’s Biggest Client, or Just a PR Stunt? – Part II This is the concluding part of a two-part article. For the first part, please see Microsoft’s Biggest Client, or Just a PR Stunt? – Part I . There is another possibility at play here. If Microsoft manages to sell the viability of its cloud offerings to the Indian government, this freebie can actually result in paying contracts in other areas. And as we all know, governments are big spenders, even on information technology (See: How Much Can the US Government Save By Going to the Cloud?). Getting buy-in is important
Microsoft’s Biggest Client, or Just a PR Stunt? – Part I On April 13, Reuters ran a news item where “Microsoft announced its biggest-ever customer for cloud computing – software that it hosts on behalf of clients and delivers over the Internet – after winning a contract to provide free services to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE)” (). Now, the first thing that struck me was the word “free” and left me thinking, “Does this truly make the AICTE Microsoft’s biggest client, or is this just a PR stunt full of fluff with no solidity?” I looked
Why Is There A Need For Cloud Computing Backup? Cloud computing provides access on-demand to resources online which requires less management effort and can be easily provisioned. Such resources may include application programming interface, servers, storages, applications, blogs, presentations, emails, documents, chats, software, and networks. Users can be given secure access to such resources by taking advantage of self-service and on-demand cloud computing technologies through their smart phones, pad tablets, notebooks, laptops, and computers. Backup services are also provided by cloud computing and cover such functions like availability of remote data, resiliency of data center, compliance and security, server performance,
Are The Big Players Being Hypocritical On Cloud Computing Standards? The usefulness (and necessity) of developing universal cloud computing standards has been covered in several articles (See: Cloud Computing Standards: How Important Are They? and Cloud Computing Standards – is it time? ). However, now that some concrete steps are being taken towards this goal, the industry is facing non-cooperation from several big players. Come to think of it, that’s not surprising. Consider what the big names like Amazon and Microsoft may lose out on if universal standards come into place. One, they would lose the power of vendor lock-in
Can The US Government Assuage Cloud Privacy Concerns? Even as the world tries to find a balance between individual privacy and the eternal vigilance of a nanny state, cloud computing is a casualty of the heightened security concerns in post-911 America. This is something that I had explored in earlier articles, from the ramifications of the PATRIOT Act (See: Is Cloud Computing a Threat to Consumer Rights?), to how rivals of American cloud vendors are actually touting the latter’s vulnerabilities to government investigation as a key business differentiator (See: Your Data in Australia is subject to the US Patriot Act).
European Firm Refuses To Go On the Microsoft Cloud Due to PATRIOT Act Concerns Sometime back I had written about how Australian cloud computing company Ninefold was trying to drum up fear that data residing on Amazon’s servers in Australia were under the jurisdiction on the US PATRIOT Act, and thereby, subject to search and seizure (See: Your Data in Australia is subject to the US PATRIOT Act ). Thus, even data on an offshore location would have no privacy from American investigators, a situation unwelcome to many businesses. While Ninefold had its own selfish reasons in highlighting this issue, it
Google vs Microsoft: US Government Agrees to End Microsoft Bias The cloud computing market is huge, and as with any other technology, the government is one of the biggest customers (How Much Can the US Government Save by Going to the Cloud? ). Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the biggest providers clamor to claim major chunks of this pie. While Google may have been one of the earlier movers in cloud computing, Microsoft has dedicated considerable resources towards dominance, maybe overwhelmingly so (Is Microsoft Taking A Risk By Putting All Its Eggs In The Cloud Computing Basket? ).
