Microsoft's mixed cloud messages

Filed in archive The Cloud on June 9, 2010

A few weeks ago, we were hearing from Steve Ballmer that Microsoft is "all in" on cloud computing, after hearing for a year that the company was all about "Software + Services" to help you run what you wanted where you needed it. Now Bob Muglia is back on track again preaching the "our software on your terms" mantra at TechEd 2010 in New Orleans.

Muglia is right in claiming that the company is uniquely positioned to support customers making the transition to either cloud-based or partial-cloud-based environments. Simply by dint of its enormous installed base of a wide range of software, Microsoft has the on-premises market nailed, and it certainly has the resources to create cloud solutions of similar scale and variety. Azure may have been late to the party, but it is a serious cloud-based offering, and bound to improve and attract customers over time.

The question remains whether or not the culture and commitment of the company will allow the two competing philosophies to play nicely together. When so much of the economic incentive of today rests with on-premises software, how seriously can the company really get about cloud computing? There appear to be factions in the organization with divergent view points on this subject; not a good thing when you are already flirting with irrelevancy in expanding next generation solution markets.