Microsoft To Make Heavy Cloud Computing Investment, Expecting No Real Returns For 2 To 3 Years

"From the perspective of investment internally, interest from customers and engagement clearly the cloud will be an area of focus," Bob Muglia, the president of the server and tools business said on Tuesday. "But in the next two to three years that is not what will drive financial growth in server and tools. It is essentially zero percent of our current operating revenue."

The company which only this month began billing users of its Azure cloud platform environment expects that it's revenue drivers will continue to be Windows Server and SQL Server, in the short run. "The big dogs are driving it, but the rest of the portfolio is doing well." said Muglia.

More at Infoworld.com

Azure - Microsoft's Operating System For The Cloud

Microsoft unveiled plans on Monday for a new cloud computing operating system dubbed Azure. Microsoft's Ray Ozzie made the announcement in front of 6500 software developers attending the annual Microsoft Developers Conference in Los Angeles. “Every time there is a major platform shift in our industry, it has turned into new opportunities for my apps and my business.” said Ozzie. Not everyone was as optimistic as Mr. Ozzie however, “Today’s announcement of Azure is the same Microsoft, keeping developers locked into their proprietary solutions, and failing to grasp the true power of cloud computing,“ said Mark Benioff, the chief executive of Salesforce.com. Whatever your take on the OS is, it will be interesting to see who follows. NY Times story.