Title says it all

1. A company who has made millions from a website that scales globally.

2. A company who has made millions from a website that scales globally.

3. A company who has made millions from an operating system that has trouble running on a single machine.

...for that insightful article. Every time Microsoft comes out with a new product, I have to read through millions of pages of marketing drivel trying to figure out what the hell the pruduct is, and if it actually does anything usefull.

Remember when .NET first came out? No one could tell you what it was, a programming language, a platform, an OS, authentication scheme, Web Services, or WTF. Microsoft loves to spread this kind of marketing FUD. Why? I don't know, but they do. Seems like the same thing with Azure.

Anyway, every time one of these things come out, I have to basically sit down and write out something like the article you've just written. Thanks for doing it for me. I will be happy to pass it on to any managers.

i make an unrelated 3 'fucks' in this article - is the standard dropping? ;)

err. sorry did I miss something?

cloud = IBM on-demand (and other offerings) for the x86(_64) people? put in the metal and activate processing power as needed?

IT is the only business that has no intentions in ever delivering actually working software, because a working software would mean one time sales, and the poor developers needed to code a version 2.0 and somehow after version 3.0 there is nothing left to code in this field of interest. (no more innovation) but its always good to have patents to troll others from biting into your market share (that you no longer deserve, because of no innovation)

Who is going to trust redmond/google/et al have access to their data, or their customers data. At what point does a reasonable competent IT Manager decide to let someone else hold the golden eggs.

as you can see from this picture:

http://www.microsoft.com/azure/images/servicesPlatform.jpg

azure is a powerpoint slide with the product name in a big box at the bottom, and above it the names of other existing products - but each one with the word 'services' after it - in smaller boxes

i.e. just like the rest of microsoft's enterprise software offerings.

"Ray Ozzie has been rewriting the same data-synchronization application for years"

This is Mr Lotus Notes, who once (not that long ago in fact) had unpleasant things to say about Microsoft.

That said, good article in giving some more clarity to MS Marketing material.

Remember, big decisions are made by senior managers/directors based on "strategic" merits, not fact or logic. i.e. which company is going to offer a non-exec position to them when they leave their current employer, best overseas briefings, what the fellow directors would like to hear or keeping old friends (e.g. ex-Anderson colleagues) happy. Kickbacks are now too traceable.

Indeed the standard is dropping. There should have been at least 6 of them.

Yes, and if recall properly what my father taught me, service is what a bull gives a cow; so at least we know what we're supposed to be getting with this!

Aah, I were on to not talk about stupidity in the cloud debate.

I cannot resist.

Stupid governments with stupid WTO rules will chose whatever fits poorly written requirements! It just has to be cheap and accommodate what is demanded. At least nobody needs to wait for the next leak...

This cloud thing is not news. It just a incredibly stupid idea from the 90ties. We do not need rack sized cloud logic to use a dozen crappy anti virus engines to protect us, we need clever developers and new approaches to extinct and suppress user stupidity where it occurs - on the network stack and your inbox! the only enemy to privacy is the user itself. for example look at Facebook et al.

Who would you rather buy your cloud resources from?

becomes:

From whom would you rather buy your cloud resources?

But it's okay, the rest LOOKS like English and we managed to understand it over here anyway...

"Never end a sentence with a preposition" - despite what is stated by dictionary.com, the rule holds good. According to dictionary.com: "If the pronoun is that, which cannot be preceded by a preposition, or if the pronoun is omitted, then the preposition must occur at the end: The librarian found the books that the child had scribbled in. There is the woman he spoke of."

Jeez, what arrogance... it didn't occur to them that this clearly demonstrates the *incorrect* English usage of "that", and the completely incorrect construction of an English sentence! I don't know what a "woman he spoke of" is, but there's one over there!

Those last two are more correctly written as: "The librarian found the books in which the child had scribbled" and "There is the woman of whom he spoke".

Or maybe they are referring to American, and not to English at all?

"we need clever developers and new approaches to extinct and suppress user stupidity where it occurs" .... By ClueShell Posted Monday 3rd November 2008 16:18 GMT

And where better place to Launch/Host/Edutain the Daring Assault on Stupefying Senses than here on El Reg, ClueShell. It is an Admirable Novel User Interface.

And there's Lots of Government Pork available such Secure Transparency.

Put down the 'Fowlers Modern English Usage' and move away from the bookcase. Keep your hands where we can see them. Easy there, no sudden moves.

Really, very few people nowadays know or understand the difference between who/whom, shall/will, etc. The dangling participle is perfectly understandable, as is the split infinitive. The reason those 'rules' have been 'broken' is that they serve no practical purpose in the real world where real people communicate with each other perfectly well without them.

Now go outside and get a life please.

(Paris, because she likes a dangling participle associated with a split infinitive)

"Who would you rather buy your cloud resources from?" That presumes that one would buy "cloud resources" for anything other than testing environments. If it's a test environment then who gives a toss. If it's live and mission critical then you need to have your head examined for trusting the likes of M$ for this, a company who have enough difficulty producing a tangible on site solutions (though my personal belief is anyone relying on cloud computing for anything mission critical should have their head examined anyway).

As has been said already this rehashing of the cloud concept is more of the same nonsense. I'm all for new and more efficient ways of doing business but this wasn't it ten years ago and it still isn't now.

I began the article not understanding WTF MS offering was about and minutes later I understand it. I have given up with the MS website and am reduced to reading wikipedia to try and figure out in a reasonable time frame what it actually is that MS product X actually does....

IT managers probably want to run from clouds. If your organisation has a CIO and does all its IT in-house then clearly clouds probably don't work well for your org.

However consider the vast number of small companies where there is no IT department. Clouds are highly appealing for these companies.

Sure, it theory the cloud provider can go tits up and take the company data down too. But that's a lot less likely than the company getting its backups all hosed and not being able to make a proper data recovery.

In short clouds offer the best option for the vast number of small organisations that can't afford a full IT department.

Why MS can't put their plans in plain language I can't understand so thanks for sorting this out.

And if I had to use a cloud, guess whose it wouldn't be.

... Or are they a Tight-Fisted Lot?

"Why MS can't put their plans in plain language I can't understand so thanks for sorting this out." .... By BlueGreen Posted Tuesday 4th November 2008 09:14 GMT

That was the same question asked of the Sherrif of Nottingham, when he was on a bender too, BlueGreen. Do you think there is a Similar Parallel Game Plan?

And I choose not to explain Paris's Appearance on the Lot. That would be Ungallant and decidely Oafish.

So this redneck from Alabama gets a scholarship into Harvard University. On his first day there, he's trying to figure out the place and gets completely lost; clueless, he hails an upperclassman and says, "'Scuse me, can yew tell me where the li-bary's at?"

Upperclassman doesn't like this, go figure. Aims his best gimlet stare across the bridge of his nose at the hapless tyro and replies, in his frostiest, fruitiest Cambridge tones, "Here at Hah-vahd University, we do not end our sentences with prepositions."

Redneck takes this in, says: "All right, then, can yew tell me where the li-bary's at, asshole?"

Bllllooooooaaaaat! Bloat, bloat, bloat.

Thanyou!

The article's good so far. It doesn't quite factor in the links in to the M$ office apps to the cloud and synchronisation and personal spaces this is just a starting point in the same way .Net was. Oh, and I would expect a bunch of non-M$ companies to offer Azure and Azure-level services. If you have to stick with M$, M$ will seriously damage it's channel relations.

And please not the preposition argument. You are soooooo wrong. English is not Latin. Go and read a decent book on English usage then go away, clear out, take off...