Microsoft expects customers to move to the cloud
Posted on May 21, 2008 by Chris DeBrusk
Reuters is carrying a article today talking about the fact that Microsoft is getting ready for customers to move to the cloud for all sorts of applications. Not surprisingly, they figure the first major migration will be Exchange mailboxes and that they really don’t care if someone buys the software or pays a monthly fee to host it on Microsoft’s infrastructure. Given that Exchange hosting in the cloud has been available for years from a whole range of companies, this isn’t much of a stretch. I’ve never worked with a company that didn’t hate all the hassle of hosting their own Exchange farm of computers.
The real interesting question is what they plan to do about Microsoft Office. Granted, cloud migration of major desktop applications requires a persistent, fast online connection but it is almost a guaranteed outcome of the current trend. Throw in offline capability like Adobe Air and it won’t be long before most of us are creating, storing and sharing our documents on the net.
In a somewhat related article, The Guardian reports that a US court has ruled that border agents can search your laptop as your cross into the United States. British border security has a similar option. While there are lots of options for encrypting and hiding information, the whole issue sort of becomes moot if you have nothing on your laptop in the first place and everything is up on the cloud. Even better if that cloud is in a country that doesn’t respond to search warrants! Not that we’d ever do anything illegal of course…it is just the point of the matter.
Sphere: Related Content» Filed Under Cloud Computing, Uncategorized
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