Is the Vista madness over? Ballmer finally mentions “Windows Cloud”
By Justin Montgomery
Steve Ballmer made mention of what he calls “Windows Cloud” or a development environment for Internet-based applications that Microsoft may be working on to push the company into the realm of cloud computing. Could this be the beginning of the end for Vista, and hopefully the entrance for a Web-based Windows OS?
Later this month at the company’s Professional Developers Conference, details should come to light about Microsoft’s plans regarding cloud computing, and the roles developers will be playing in the initiative. Even though it’s been expected for some time now, developers are chomping at the bit to see just how available the developer-based tools and resources could be. "I think at the end of the day, cloud computing will be dictated by the interests and the degree to which you capture the imagination of developers," Ballmer said, according to CNet News.
Microsoft has already treaded in the waters of going to the clouds with it’s introduction of Live Mesh and Office Live Workspace, though nothing to exciting has been announced as of yet. Office Live Workspace will allow for storage and online viewing of Office documents, but the lack of editing capabilities makes it more or less useless to most of us. Likewise, Live Mesh offers no tools for developers to create their own mesh-enabled applications as of yet. Hopefully, everything will be spelled out in at the Developers Conference.
It’s good to see Microsoft going the way its competitors have been going in for a while now- particularly Google. Google Docs has offered web-based storage, viewing, collaboration, and yes, editing since its inception. Microsoft should have done the same, before it was too late. Given, with Microsoft’s broad enterprise-based reach and user base, it shouldn’t be hard to make waves with a cloud-based Office, but with Window’s scolded reputation as of late, they’ll have to really impress with the next offering. Besides, isn’t a Web-based OS nothing short of an enhanced web-browser?
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Stumble It!
October 3rd, 2008
What’s ironic about this is back in 1980 when I first got into IT, I spent much of my time switching over businesses with “dumb” terminals who accessed hosted applications to stand alone workstations free of IT tyranny.