Microsoft takes to the 'cloud'

MANILA, Philippines - Microsoft is making a big push for cloud computing in the Philippines with the launch of two new products that will make cloud services more attractive to developers and enterprises in the country.

“We believe that our future is in the cloud,” said John Bessey, managing director of Microsoft Philippines, at the sidelines of the launch of the Windows Azure platform and Visual Studio 2010 in Manila recently.

The Windows Azure platform is a Web services platform for the creation of Web applications, while Visual Studio 2010 is the latest version of its developer tools and platform that Microsoft says “will simplify the development process and enable Filipino developers to target new platforms and build high-quality applications.”

Bessey expressed full confidence that people will eventually make the shift and take to building applications in the cloud as tools and services become more available.

“We have faith that our customers will migrate from on-premises systems to the cloud,” Bessey said, reiterating that Microsoft isn’t new to cloud computing.

“We are leading in the cloud. In fact 70 percent of our people are working on applications in the cloud,” he discloses.

In the last few years, people have started to look to the cloud for services that normally belongs to the desktop or on-premise set-ups. Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite, for example, includes a set of messaging and collaboration solutions such as Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Office Live Meeting, and Microsoft Office Communications Online.

In layman’s terms, people are using “cloud” services every time they use software that are available online instead of buying them in a box and installing them in their machines. People are also “in the cloud” every time they check their Web-based mail, uploads files and photos on the Web, buy and store music or videos online, or sign up for streaming services.

Microsoft’s treasure trove

Microsoft’s treasure trove of 500 million active Windows live ID, 369 million Hotmail users, 650 million unique MSN users and 20 million people on Xbox live makes it ripe for the cloud era.

“The inspiration for what we are doing now starts with the cloud and Windows driving smart devices that the crowd really wants, said Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer in a speech at the University of Washington recently.

On the enterprise level, the company is banking on Azure to drive cloud adoption. Currently, Bessey said there are now 49 applications available on the Windows Azure platform and this is going to eventually increase.

Dale Jose, Microsoft Philippines’ developer and platform evangelism director, said that local companies are also now testing applications in the Azure platform and it is only a matter of time before these applications are released.

“Basically, we are empowering users to fast-track innovations through new platforms and more powerful developer tools,” he said.

Bessey said that Microsoft has actually been providing enterprise-class cloud computing services to businesses for the past 15 years. Windows Azure is merely a new tool that provides opportunities for the Microsoft partner ecosystem in the country to drive the development of innovative cloud services.

Local partner ecosystem

This local partner ecosystem includes 35,000 developers and 137,000 IT professionals, he said.

Milinda Kotewele, co-founder and CEO of longscale, one of the pioneers in enterprise cloud computing on the Windows Azure platform, said the key benefits of the platform includes faster time to market, as users immediately gain access to hardware and other infrastructure without major capital investments; lower upfront IT cost, as it has a pay-per-use billing system; and easy scaleability, which can be customized to client demand.

“The cloud is great, you only pay for what you use,” affirmed David Chappell, technology consultant and principal of Chappell & Associates in San Francisco, California who was in town for the launch.

Chappell explained that some of the projects that are appropriate for Azure applications include apps that need massive scale, apps that require high-reliability, those that have short or unpredictable lifetimes, those that require parallel processing, those that fail or scale fast and those that benefit from external storage, among others.

Along with Windows Azure, Microsoft also launched Visual Studio 2010, which it said will help Filipino developers target new platforms and build high-quality applications.

“With Visual Studio 2010, we are creating oppportunities for local developers to create applications for new and existing devices, as well as cloud services,” said Jose.