Back to the Cloud
The rumor mills are on fire with possibility that Windows is relaunching its cloud services as an infrastructure-as-a-service plan. Okay, there isn’t that much buzz and probably very few people care. However, it is interesting news. The rumor boils down that Windows might offer Windows and Linux machine resources to be rented by the hour.
This move makes sense. Microsoft and Google are about the only companies that can go toe-to-toe with Amazon Web Services. They have the talent and the ability to create economies of scale. That one of the reasons why Amazon has gone relatively unchallenged in the cloud hosting arena. Competitors like Rackspace and Openstack just can’t slash prices like Amazon can. Some estimates place Amazon at nearly fifty percent of the market right now in cloud services. It’s commanding, but the mighty do fall.
What does this mean for you? Well, if you’re looking for cloud hosting services then you’ll have more choices. Infrastructure as a service allows you to get more computer power when you need it. If the rumors are to be believed (a recent tweet by Microsoft seems to confirm it) than you can pay for it by the hour. We’ll just have to wait until June 7th.
