I wanted to provide a guest blog post from Brad Anderson, Microsoft Corporate Vice President, in which he share’s the news that Gartner has named Microsoft a leader in their 2011 Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure *. In his post, Brad covers topics such as private cloud...

Today Microsoft launched our newest cloud service, Office 365, which delivers Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft Lync Online together in a predictable monthly subscription. You can find full details on the announcement here and also more information...

I wanted to share a guest blog post from Derrek Kim, a Technology Specialist with CDW, on cloud strategies and the role of virtualization in cloud computing. In the post Derrek shares some perspectives on cloud computing, including both public and private cloud deployments and the results of CDW's recent...

Today, Fujitsu and Microsoft announced the upcoming August 2011 availability of the Fujitsu Global Cloud Platform service, which marks the first official production release of a Windows Azure platform appliance delivered by Fujitsu. The new service offering has already been running in Fujitsu’s...

I wanted to share another post from my colleague, Mark Miller, this time summarizing a recent WIRED cloud computing event in New York City. The full text of Mark’s recap is below and it also includes a couple links to videos from the event. Let me know if you have any comments or questions. Thanks...

Just catching up on some news from yesterday that the City and County of San Francisco are upgrading and consolidating their multiple citywide email systems used by more than 23,000 employees onto Microsoft Exchange Online, which is a cloud-based enterprise messaging solution. The move is part of...

I wanted to share news of an announcement this morning at SAPPHIRE NOW , SAP’s business and technology conference being held in Orlando, Florida this week. The announcement states that SAP and Microsoft will work together on making application development and cloud management easier for developers...

A colleague of mine, Mark Miller, was at a recent cloud computing dinner event in Silicon Valley. He wrote up a brief summary of the event, which I thought would interest you and wanted to share. Give it a read below and let me know if you have any comments or questions. Thanks - Larry New Research...

This week the Microsoft TechEd North America conference is taking place in Atlanta Georgia. TechEd is an annual conference which provides IT professionals and developers with deep technical education across Microsoft’s current and upcoming products, solutions and services. Taking into account...

Couple of interesting updates on the Windows Azure front that I came across yesterday on Redmondmag.com and Mary Jo Foley’s All About Microsoft sites. Redmondmag.com covers the announcement from CA Technologies that they’re bringing their ARCserve backup and recovery solutions exclusively...

In April, I wrote about the Social eXperience Platform (SXP) powered by the Windows Azure platform and how it delivers cloud-powered capabilities to Microsoft Showcase and the Cloud Conversations sites. There were some notable numbers in that post related the improved availability and reduction in costs...

I came across an interesting announcement today over on the Windows Azure blog regarding Orion Energy Systems and their use of the Windows Azure platform to host their InteLite offering, a sensor-and-control solution designed to help their customers save energy and control lighting costs. The announcement...

I wanted to share a blog post from Microsoft’s CIO, Tony Scott, where he provides some insight into 5 lessons he’s learned along the path to deploying cloud computing solutions at Microsoft. Tony shared this information with an audience of fellow CIOs at a Forbes and Microsoft CIO network...

Good news last week from the Online Services team at Microsoft with the announcement that the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite-Federal (BPOS-F) offering has received FISMA certification and accreditation, a process by which federal agencies validate the security of information management...

Whether you know it or not, when you visit the Cloud Power site you’re most likely experiencing a service or application hosted on or utilizing the Windows Azure platform. Whether it’s the social media experience for videos hosted on the Microsoft Showcase site or visiting our Cloud Conversations...

There are a variety of stories coming out today regarding the availability of the Microsoft Office 365 cloud service public beta, including this one on PCMag.com and the official news release on Microsoft.com here . The beta is available to 38 markets and in 17 languages. Office 365 brings the...

A Windows Azure platform update from “The Entertainment Capital of the World”, Las Vegas, and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show going on there. At the show we announced that we’re working with a variety of industry partners and creating a partner ecosystem to help...

This morning I came across a newly published article on All Things Digital by Arik Hesseldahl titled “Seven Questions for Doug Hauger, Head of Microsoft’s Azure Cloud Platform” . When I talk with others in the industry I sometimes get questions about what Windows Azure is . Arik’s...

Post by: Larry Grothaus Big news from the auto world today: your next car might be greener thanks to the cloud. Microsoft and Toyota Motor Corp. have announced that the Windows Azure Platfor m (Windows Azure and SQL Azure) will be the foundation for a global cloud-computing platform that will deliver...

In prior posts, I’ve written about server virtualization technologies such as Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V being at the foundation of cloud computing, including private and public implementations. Many customers are already using Microsoft virtualization technologies to achieve greater scalability...

There’s an interesting article over on Eweek.com from Chris Preimesberger about a presentation by IDC SVP and Chief Analyst, Frank Gens. The story talks about how the industry and IT are at a crossroad similar to the one 25 years ago with the transformation from traditional mainframes and...

I wanted to highlight a post from David Greschler , Microsoft’s Director of Virtualization and Cloud Strategy, over on the VMBlog.com site that touches on a couple of customers using real Private Cloud implementations today. The customers include Lionbridge , Liverpool Institute for the Performing...

I saw a brief article this morning on the Washington Post site about a government related cloud computing commission being formed to help provide recommendations to the federal CIO, Vivek Kundra, and the commerce secretary, Gary Locke. The Post story touches on the U.S. federal government’s...

I was reading an interesting story just published by Bloomberg Businessweek titled “The Cloud: Battle of the Tech Titans”. The story covers some of the more obvious benefits of cloud computing such as reducing the costs associated with having underutilized hardware and time spent maintaining...

I was having lunch with a colleague yesterday and we were talking about the logical evolution underway in IT, which began a couple of years ago with the broad availability of server virtualization technology like Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V . With the advent of cloud computing as an infrastructure...