Windows Cloud is the internal name for an upcoming operating system by Microsoft. It will be announced with its official name at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference on October 27, 2008 by Steve Ballmer.[1][2]
According to Steve Ballmer, Windows Cloud is to be based on Windows Server, with features including geo replication, network management model, and a SOA model.
Steve Ballmer was next door in the Queen Elizabeth Hall talking to the TechNet/TechEd people about Office Live, and mentioning that there would be a major announcement at the PDC on the 27th October. Once he finished there, he popped next door and told us a similar thing.
From talking to a few TechNet people afterwards during tea and biscuits (awfully British), they’re letting loose into the wild “Windows Cloud”, a temporary name for a service which will most likely have a more interesting name by the time it’s launched. Ballmer said:
“Just like Windows Server looked a lot like Windows, but with new properties, new characteristics and new features, so will Windows Cloud; it’ll look a lot like Windows Server.”
Whilst he made it clear when he spoke to us later on that Google was their main rival, they don’t always see other companies as major rivals. They know that Facebook has a much bigger user base than Windows Live Spaces, and work together with them by swapping and buying stocks and shares. Not every company is seen a 833 s a threat, he made clear.
With this, Office Live will probably be evolved into a more beautiful, streamlined surface. I asked him in the Q&A session about the future of Office Live and what’ll come next.
“Office Live has a few things left it needs to do. Number one, and probably most important, is to make sure that people using Office have greater ability to collaborate with one another. We have some of that today with [Office Live] Workspaces, as well as that we’ve got SharePoint; we can do more and some of those things will be better than the other alternatives.
Number two, is when we do Office Live, it has to be true to Office; you’ll need to be able to have full Office documents and programs and share them.
Number three, we have to make it so that - most people use Office most of the time from a single machine. But if you’re away from your desk, at a cafe, a kiosk or your school library, and you don’t have Office, you’ll want to be able to do something quickly; we have to make sure you can get it easily, stream it down, put it in a browser, something like that there… details coming in a few weeks.
So we have a number of things we’re doing. Exactly what we’ll announce I’m going to wait and let you guys sit it out until October 27th.”
So, a streamed, web-browser’d version of Office; sounds like a plan. I must say, Ballmer may be all rich, powerful, famous and all mighty, but it doesn’t show. He is genuinely a gentle, kind and caring bloke; who cares passionately not just about developers, but “students students students!”
Amongst many things, Zack Whittaker is a good-for-nothing, pink-sock wearing, tea drinking, British student at the University of Kent, Canterbury, on the south-east coast of England. Currently in his second year, he decided to change courses to 7f3 BA (Hons) Criminology and Social Policy, because he got bored with computer science.
Have a look at his public biography and work disclosures of his current and past industry affiliations, or fire off an email if you feel like sharing a story, or just feel a bit lonely and want a chitty chat and a virtual hug.
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Microsoft is set to create its own operating system for cloud computing, the company’s chief executive Steve Ballmer said today.
Speaking to a TechNet audience in London today, Ballmer said Microsoft would announce “Windows Cloud” within four weeks, adding he’s “sure we’ll have a snazzier name on launch.”
Presumably, the announcement will come at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles at the end of October.
The new OS is necessary as it’s too hard today for people to write cloud applications, Ballmer said, bouncing around the stage in his trademark style. “You should be able to write an application and push it the cloud,” he boomed, explaining that services, scaling, fault tolerance and other aspects of the cloud should be dealt with by an operating system.
“Write the application and put the intelligence where it makes sense, in the cloud, server or device,” he added. In other words, new applications developed with Windows Cloud – say, on .Net – will work across different platforms, such as in the enterprise, on the web or on mobile devices.
In the first version, users will have to work with a Microsoft data centre, Ballmer said. By version two or three, other data centres could be used.
Ballmer explained that writing an OS is how Microsoft has traditionally entered a market, referencing Windows CE, Server and others. And as Server mirrored the desktop Windows OS, the 'Cloud' system will look a bit like Server.
The move to developing applications for the cloud echoes changes in the way software will work in the future, Ballmer said. Most software must be installed before it can run; Microsoft believes software will become more like web applications, which users simply click to run.
Rather than Software as a Service (SaaS), Microsoft is looking to call this “Software + Services” – reflecting the fact that it won’t just be web based, but embedded in all devices. “Software remains the magic ingredient,” he said.
Such applications – and indeed, cloud computing as a whole – will affect consumers more quickly than enterprises, who may take years to take it up, he added.
“We’re embracing cloud computing as much as anyone,” he said, adding Microsoft has more related products than even Google. “Great search, doesn’t have much for enterprise,” he said.
Google Docs don’t impress Ballmer, either: “They’re not very popular products.”
Details regarding Office for the web are also set to be revealed at the developers conference in a few weeks time. Ballmer offered a preview, saying that he believes people want an office suite which is as rich as Microsoft Office, but can be accessed via the web for light editing in a browser when away from the desk, and offers joint-editing abilities. “We want software that’s more powerful than just runs in a browser,” he said, taking another dig at Google.
The PDC will also feature the Alpha launch of Windows 7. Ballmer said: “Any work you do today to get ready for Vista also gets you ready in perfect shape for next version of Windows, Windows 7.”
Last month, virtualisation competitor VMware released its own virtual data centre operating system, looking to move servers and desktops to the cloud.
