Windows Azure - Microsoft's cloud platform
Microsoft doesn't seem to have changed it's strategy a little bit even though many have hailed this as a 180 degree turnaround. It is again copying what other startups and market creators have done (cloud computing, internet as a platform etc) and then executing on the plan so well that it is cheap(?), superior and accessible to everyone. At the same time, it also tries to win back the developers and defend its platform. So, what is new? For those who missed the announcement, Microsoft came out with a comprehensive cloud computing platform for developers and organizations which can be used to host applications developed for the platform. To its credit, the platform is so comprehensive and well integrated that Google's equivalent AppEngine seems like.. well, something that was built on 20% time. (But, note that the Sql Data services seems awfully similar to the Google Bigtable model.) It also seems to have pulled the entire company including Office, SQLServer, Developer ...