Comments on: Microsoft Azure: Definitely Not Too Little, But is it Too Late? http://pro.gigaom.com/2009/11/microsoft-azure-definitely-not-too-little-but-is-it-too-late/ Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:08:00 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Derrick Harris http://pro.gigaom.com/2009/11/microsoft-azure-definitely-not-too-little-but-is-it-too-late/comment-page-1/#comment-604 Derrick Harris Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:25:05 +0000 http://pro.gigaom.com/?p=18487#comment-604 I can't disagree that Azure appears to be an almost-revolutionary cloud offering, my only concern is that everyone else is building momentum with actual customers and that they're rolling out new features at breakneck paces. Playing catch-up in mindshare and adoption could be difficult. Having said that, it looks like Microsoft is set up to capitalize on Azure. I can’t disagree that Azure appears to be an almost-revolutionary cloud offering, my only concern is that everyone else is building momentum with actual customers and that they’re rolling out new features at breakneck paces. Playing catch-up in mindshare and adoption could be difficult.

Having said that, it looks like Microsoft is set up to capitalize on Azure.

]]> By: rickbullotta http://pro.gigaom.com/2009/11/microsoft-azure-definitely-not-too-little-but-is-it-too-late/comment-page-1/#comment-602 rickbullotta Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:23:30 +0000 http://pro.gigaom.com/?p=18487#comment-602 Derrick, I had the same perspective as you prior to last week, and I was also in attendance at the PDC. I was very, VERY impressed with the completeness and clarity of the Azure family of technologies and platforms. What added to the story immensely was the amount of substance and capability added to Silverlight 4 in its role as the "last mile" of the cloud story. I think the overall platform, particularly the ability to run virtually unmodified applications on-premise or in the Azure cloud is compelling. One other positive was the work being done on "Sydney" to provide a secure connection to/from the cloud and on-premise applications and content. One negative was the fact that the Azure service bus remains "cloud only" and will not be available as part of AppFabric or for use behind the firewall. I think this is a big mistake, and hopefully one that can be addressed in the coming months. No doubt there's a lot of work to do to get the pieces of the vision implemented, but I think Microsoft has done a very impressive job in the past year moving it forward. A few last pieces of the puzzle that I would love to hear, which would completely round out the end-to-end story, would be: - Comprehensive HTML 5 support in IE9 - 99% functional parity between Silverlight on all platforms/browsers - Native oAuth and other federated authentication support in Azure - Lightweight collaboration services for video/audio/chat/presence with corresponding Silverlight components (the MS unified communications story is too big, heavy, and administration intensive) - Consumption monitoring on the cloud side to prevent individual rogue client applications/consumers of data and services to run up your Azure bill (similar to the click abuse in early Google days) - An application delivery story for non-Microsoft mobile devices That said, I think what we've been provided with in beta form [with Azure] is more than adequate to build a very compelling set of applications, and we're seriously considering doing just that. We were (are) very close to leveraging a LAMP/Adobe stack, but last week really complicated that decision! Rick Derrick, I had the same perspective as you prior to last week, and I was also in attendance at the PDC. I was very, VERY impressed with the completeness and clarity of the Azure family of technologies and platforms. What added to the story immensely was the amount of substance and capability added to Silverlight 4 in its role as the “last mile” of the cloud story. I think the overall platform, particularly the ability to run virtually unmodified applications on-premise or in the Azure cloud is compelling. One other positive was the work being done on “Sydney” to provide a secure connection to/from the cloud and on-premise applications and content. One negative was the fact that the Azure service bus remains “cloud only” and will not be available as part of AppFabric or for use behind the firewall. I think this is a big mistake, and hopefully one that can be addressed in the coming months.

No doubt there’s a lot of work to do to get the pieces of the vision implemented, but I think Microsoft has done a very impressive job in the past year moving it forward.

A few last pieces of the puzzle that I would love to hear, which would completely round out the end-to-end story, would be:

- Comprehensive HTML 5 support in IE9
- 99% functional parity between Silverlight on all platforms/browsers
- Native oAuth and other federated authentication support in Azure
- Lightweight collaboration services for video/audio/chat/presence with corresponding Silverlight components (the MS unified communications story is too big, heavy, and administration intensive)
- Consumption monitoring on the cloud side to prevent individual rogue client applications/consumers of data and services to run up your Azure bill (similar to the click abuse in early Google days)
- An application delivery story for non-Microsoft mobile devices

That said, I think what we’ve been provided with in beta form [with Azure] is more than adequate to build a very compelling set of applications, and we’re seriously considering doing just that. We were (are) very close to leveraging a LAMP/Adobe stack, but last week really complicated that decision!

Rick

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