Steve Ballmer on Cloud Computing: We are all in!

If you missed the webcast yesterday, or just want to watch it again: they are available here. In his speech Steve Ballmer outlined the following 5 dimensions:

• The cloud creates opportunities and responsibilities
• The cloud  learns and helps you learn, decide and take action
• The cloud enhances your social and professional interactions
• The cloud wants smarter devices
• The cloud drives server advances that drive the cloud

70% of Microsoft staff are already working on the cloud across those 5 dimensions and by next year, that percentage would be 90. Quite a lot I’d say. In all-staff email sent out by Ballmer, he writes “We must move at cloud speed” and tells that a new ad campaign will be launched in the U.S.

Below you will find a video with some excerpts of his speech and footage of Microsoft’s Quincy facility that houses data centers used by businesses to support their cloud computing needs.

This is a short video, if you want to watch the full speech: it’s over an hour long! So be warned.

A website dedicated to Cloud Services has also been launched. Here you will find what’s all in the cloud and more, e.g the full Ballmer speech can be watched here too. The URL is easy to remember, it’s http://www.microsoft.com/cloud/

 CloudExperience We're All In

Comments

  • JohnCz

    Its interesting that they highlighted Office Live separately in this diagram from Windows Live. After last years reorg, many of us including myself assumed this meant they would be integrating Office Live with Windows Live. But if this diagram is any indication, it looks like they have plans for Office Live as a standalone.

    I use Office Live for my small business to provide email and website/sharepoint. I’m sure many of those 12M though are users of Office Live Workspace. The Web / SharePoint “Small Business” side of Office Live has remain essentially the same. But I’m hoping we’ll see it upgraded with SharePoint 2010.

    • Sammi

      Whatever Microsoft is doing with Office Live, I hope they won’t close it down. Despite the Office Live website/sharepoint service being rather limited and restrictive, it works well for many simple use cases (i.e. not everyone needs a full-featured solution). If they can lower the price point for adding more users to the business applications, it can remain a very competitive product.

  • http://www.nooksurfer.com/ NookSurfer

    I’m definitely excited to see what kind of advancements Microsoft has in store. Although Google has done an excellent job with Chrome, I believe Microsoft will be the one to take the concept to new levels.