Azure

Microsoft and (lack of) innovation: Big angst in Redmond

While it may not be facing a Toyota-like crisis of confidence, Microsoft’s got big problems.

Today, Dick Brass, a former exec who headed up Microsoft’s ill-fated tablet PC efforts, turned a spotlight on the company’s “Issues”, in a brutal New York Times Op Ed piece, decrying the silo’d thinking and fiefdoms that have prevented Microsoft from coming out with great (as in not derivative) products.  You know, products people actually want to buy, as opposed to the “we have to upgrade to stay legal” kind of products it rolls out. (To all those who would now start screaming that most of Microsoft’s innovation borrowed heavily on advances by Apple, Netscape, and Novell,  I have to quote the great  Waltmosspuppet and say: “Shut up.” )  Continued »

Microsoft PDC 09: The pressure’s on

In the past, Microsoft has used its Professional Developers Conference to talk pie in the sky. Promises made one year for the next typically dribbled out months, even years late and functionally short. Longhorn anyone?

That can’t happen anymore.  With PDC 2009 kicking off this week, Microsoft  has precious little time to make good on Azure promises. It’s playing catchup with uber-nemesis Google and — perhaps more importantly — to Amazon which has real-world cloud services out and functioning now for real, paying customers. Continued »

Azure gets eclipsed

Microsoft continues its push to make its proposed Azure cloud plat form palatable to developers beyond the Windows realm and an embrace of Eclipse is bound to do that. 

Toward that end, Microsoft signed two proxies–Tasktop Technologies and Soyatec– to help make the Eclipse software development platform Azure friendly. (Or is it the other way around?) Anyway, the goal is to equip Eclipse to work with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 features.

Part of the deal is to develop updates to the Eclipse IDE so that it can incorporate new Win 7 and WS 2008 R2 features. Another is a planned open source plug-in to let PHP developers use Eclipse to create Web apps that would run in Azure. Also on tap: a Windows Azure SDC  for Java.

More details here and here

You too can ‘friend’ Azure

For those who can’t get enough of Microsoft Azure, Microsoft (or someone) has thoughtfully set up a Facebook page for the future set of hosted services. It hasn’t been updated since April, but what the heck?

Where’d Azure workflow go?

A week before the expected roll out of the Microsoft Azure cloud services price and sales model, Microsoft has pulled back a key component service. A developer who had been working with Azure Workflow services could no longer access them as of yesterday and Microsoft says that the services will now be held up so they can support .NET 4.0. Continued »