Cloud computing’ is a term used to describe a situation where applications are based on web servers and accessed through internet connections, rather than being installed on clients. This leads to a new business model of subscription-based applications, generally known as ‘software as a service’ (SaaS) but dubbed by Microsoft as ‘software plus services.
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“Every time there’s a big new trend, a big new opportunity, we write a new operating system,” Ballmer told delegates at the conference. “We’re now in the process of writing a new operating system. For lack of a better term, before we announce it in four weeks, I’ll call it Windows Cloud.”
Ballmer also hinted at what would be built into the new OS, including geo replication, how to design apps intended to commingle [we think he means appeasing regulators by providing more interoperability], management modelling and an SOA model, to effectively create a new platform.
“We’re not driving an agenda towards being service providers but we’ve gotta build a service that is Windows in the cloud,” admitted Ballmer.
He also hit out at internet kingpin and pesky rival Google.
“If you talk to Google they’ll say it’s thin client computing but then they’ll issue a new browser that’s basically a big fat operating system designed to compete with Windows but running on top of it,” he said.
Please excuse my heavy quoting…
