Microsoft cloud fits and starts.

“Cash for Clunkers” Should Have Used the Cloud!

By G C Network | August 24, 2009

Rich Bruklis wrote an excellent essy on how the government missed a perfect opportunity to use cloud computing. In “Cloud Opportunity Missed” he writes: “It appears that the voucher system…

US Navy Experiments With Secure Cloud Computing

By G C Network | August 20, 2009

This week in San Diego, CA the US Navy held the initial planning conference for Trident Warrior ’10. The Trident Warrior series is the premier annual FORCEnet Sea Trial Event…

GSA To Present On Cloud Initiative at NCOIC Plenary

By G C Network | August 13, 2009

A General Services Administration (GSA) representative is now scheduled to provide a briefing on the agency’s cloud computing initiative during a “Best Practices for Cloud Initiatives using Storefronts” session on…

FAA CIO Focuses on Cybersecurity

By G C Network | August 12, 2009

During this week Federal Executive Forum, FAA CIO Dave Bowen mentioned protection against software vulnerabilities, wireless intrusion and website vulnerabilities as his top cybersecurity priorities. As the Assistant Administrator for…

DHS Asst. Secretary Addresses Cybersecurity Priorities

By G C Network | August 11, 2009

Greg Schaffer, Assistant Secretary for CyberSecurity & Communications for the US Department of Homeland Security, sees Trusted Internet Connections, EINSTEIN, and front line defense of the nation’s networks as top…

US DoD Chief Security Officer on Cybersecurity Priorities

By G C Network | August 10, 2009

In a Federal Executive Forum interview, Robert Lentz, Chief Security Officer for the US Department of Defense, highlighted the departments cybersecurity priorities. Mr. Lentz is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of…

Twitter Under Denial of Service Attack

By G C Network | August 6, 2009

Multiple sources are reporting that Twitter continues to be under a denial of service attack. Some are speculating that this represents the power of a coordinated bot network attack. For…

NCOIC Holding Full Day Cloud Computing Session

By G C Network | August 5, 2009

The Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC) will be holding a one-day cloud computing session during its plenary meetings, 21-25 September at the Fair Lakes Hyatt in Fairfax, VA. A…

Sevatec a New Player in the Federal Cloud Computing Market

By G C Network | August 3, 2009

Just in time for the new Federal Cloud Computing Storefront, Sevatec, Inc. is announcing the development of a toolkit to help federal agencies transform their enterprise architectures to cloud computing…

GSA Releases Cloud Computing RFQ

By G C Network | July 31, 2009

Following through on a much anticipated action, GSA released their Cloud Computing Request For Quotation (RFQ) today. Cloud computing is a major part of President Obama’s reform effort and this…

Microsoft’s dance with cloud comuting is very puzzling.

Point 1:

The June 5th Wall Street Journal article discusses the friction between Steve Ballmer and Bill Gagtes over NetDocs, described by WSJ writer Bob Guth as ” a promising effort to offer software programs such as word processing over the Internet.” Sounding very similar to Google Docs, the project died because it would have eaten into Microsoft Office revenues.

Point 2:

Microsoft’s plans to open up it’s entire lineup of Internet services to developers under a “Cloud OS” moniker. Alternatively described as “cloud-centric” Brian Hall, general manager of Windows Live describes this effort as “A lot of the data, a lot of the apps, a lot of the interesting things are on the edge. They are on the PCs. They are on the Xboxes. They are on the phones.”

Point 3:
The ongoing Microsoft/Yahoo dance which seems to be focused on search engines and ad revenue, not cloud computing at all.

If Microsoft is planning on participating in the next revolution in computing, it really needs to change it’s box-centric view and get on with moving it’s applications onto the network. Cloud computing is about reducing reliance on the user client, not increasing it!

You should also read Blaise Zerega’s view on the matter under his Portfolio.com blog “Did Microsoft Let Cloud Computing Slip Away”

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G C Network