Below is an Email Steve Ballmer Sent to his Staff at Microsoft.

Today, I spoke to a group of students and faculty at the University of Washington to discuss how cloud computing will change the way people and businesses use technology.

My goal was to challenge people to look at the cloud more broadly and understand the multidimensional nature of the cloud transformation happening today. Other companies have defined the cloud in a narrow, one-dimensional way. Although these companies provide some interesting components, Microsoft is uniquely delivering on a wide range of cloud capabilities that bring increasingly more value to our customers.

In my speech, I outlined the five dimensions that define the way people use and realize value in the cloud:

• 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

This view fuels our investments across  the entire company, from datacenters to cloud platform technologies to cloud-based development tools and applications. Today, nearly every one of our products has, or is developing, features or services that support the cloud. As I said today, when it comes to the cloud, we are all in. We are all in across every product line we have and across every dimension of the cloud.

Of course, this is not news to any of you. We have been making huge investments in the cloud for the past decade. Nearly five years  ago, Ray’s “Services Disruption” memo provided the outline for what we needed to do as a company, and with the delivery of Windows Azure at the recent PDC, we have made huge strides in making this vision real.

To keep our momentum, it is critical that  every Microsoft employee works to deliver the full benefits of the cloud to our customers.

As a part of this, I request that you do the following:

• Watch the speech on demand here
• Learn more about our cloud offerings and how they relate to our overarching software plus services strategy here
• Review your commitments to ensure you are landing our vision with customers and partners.

Of course, there is more work to do. We have strong competitors. We need to be (and are) willing to change our business models to take advantage of the cloud. We must move at “cloud speed,” especially in our consumer offerings. And we need to be crystal clear about the value we provide to all our customers.

To drive our message home even further, today you will see an ad campaign in the U.S. focused on our commercial and government businesses, a new website with consolidated content and case studies, and ongoing emphasis on the cloud from me and other members of the SLT in our upcoming speeches and presentations.

We have an enormous opportunity in front of us. We have great products and services in the market today and a range of new ones on their way.

All of our products make the cloud better, and the cloud makes our products better.

Thanks,

Steve

Free Version of Innovative Software Appliance Moves VMware-based Applications to the Amazon EC2 Cloud

Burlington, Mass. — March 1, 2010 — CloudSwitch, Inc. today announced that it has launched its beta program for CloudSwitch Explorer. For the first time, enterprises can move existing, multi-tiered applications to the Amazon EC2 cloud with point-and-click simplicity and no modifications. CloudSwitch’s innovative software bridges the enterprise data center with cloud computing services, extending enterprise security and control into the cloud. With CloudSwitch, applications remain tightly integrated with enterprise data center tools and policies, and are managed as if they were running locally.

CloudSwitch Explorer is a free, downloadable software appliance that installs easily into VMware environments. It supports a single user and up to five Windows and Linux virtual machines in the Amazon EC2 cloud. IT professionals and developers who want to explore the cloud simply and securely can do this starting today with CloudSwitch.

“We want any enterprise that’s interested in exploring the cloud to feel confident that they can do this easily, without re-engineering their applications,” said John McEleney, CEO at CloudSwitch. “The cloud offers a fast, scalable and low-cost alternative to traditional corporate data centers, and our goal at CloudSwitch is to extend the internal IT infrastructure to a wide range of cloud services in a simple and secure way.”

Growing Beta Program

CloudSwitch has been working closely with early beta customers and partners since late 2009. The private beta program included several mid-tier and large enterprises in the telecommunications, healthcare and pharmaceuticals industries, among others. Based on this feedback, CloudSwitch has continued to develop and improve its beta offerings, and is making the CloudSwitch Explorer version available for free so a broad range of customers can access the cloud with no risk. At the same time, the CloudSwitch Enterprise commercial version is available in an expanded beta program for enterprises that are ready for larger cloud deployments, with multiple users and groups.

Both the Explorer and Enterprise versions are built on CloudSwitch’s patent-pending Cloud Isolation Technology™ that secures all data and communications end-to-end and automatically maps applications into the target cloud. Once the CloudSwitch software appliance has been deployed in a virtualized environment, the customer can select Windows and Linux applications and move them to the cloud easily, with no engineering efforts. CloudSwitch eliminates the changes to applications, networking and management tools that were previously required to use the cloud, and protects customers from cloud lock-in.

“CloudSwitch has arrived in the market at the right time and place,” said William Fellows, Principal Analyst at the 451 Group. “Experimentation with basic applications in the public cloud and planning for eventual bridging of internal and public clouds is happening across most industry segments, and CloudSwitch is well-positioned to drive enterprise cloud adoption.”

Pricing and Availability

CloudSwitch Explorer and CloudSwitch Enterprise beta versions are available now at www.cloudswitch.com. Explorer is always free, while Enterprise pricing begins at $25,000 for an annual license including basic support and up to 20 virtual machines under management in the cloud. Cloud usage fees are paid separately to the cloud provider. Additional pricing for scaling cloud deployments is available. CloudSwitch provides a 15-day free trial version of the Enterprise version for customer evaluations. To learn more about both the Explorer and Enterprise versions, please call (866) 578-6127 or contact us at info@cloudswitch.com.

Hand Out Copies of Your Own Mini-Datacenter

CloudShare Pro is intended for individuals and small teams who want to run complete, networked systems in the cloud and share copies with other colleagues for collaboration. A smaller version of  CloudShare’s Enterprise SaaS offering, CloudShare Pro provides a quick and easy way to create, share, manage and track multiple complete, virtual IT environments.

While in public Beta, CloudShare Pro is FREE (and by that we mean that it costs nothing, zero, nada – Cloudshare only asks for your cooperation in improving it, and that you click a ‘renew’ button every 15 days so they know you’re still interested). Only your name and email address are required to start using it.

Each CloudShare Pro environment includes the following:

• Up to six VMs – Linux or Windows machines (licensing included)
• Flat network (each VM gets its own internal IP)
• Outbound access to the Internet
• Drag & drop file sharing from your desktop
• On-demand environment snapshots
• Private environments, accessible only to the author and invited peers
• Up to 10 monthly peer invites
• Invited peers can upgrade to become authors too, starting with the environment to which they were invited!

Support is provided ….

What can I do with CloudShare Pro?

Sign Up…………Below………It’s Free

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Is managed Hosting right for your Company? Managed Hosting provides a ready to use IT stack including hardware and infrastructure software for the deployment of applications, all accessed over the internet.

Research by Gartner, Forrester and CIO magazine show that companies can lower the total cost of infrastructure ownership 25-60% with managed hosting.

Hosting helps you be efficient with your cash

· Removes the need for big capital outlays on hardware and data centers
· Frees up your funds for primary business expenses
· Offers affordable and predictable monthly costs
· Lets you pay as you grow rather than over purchase capacity upfront
· Delivers a faster return on your investment

Hosting helps you extend your resources

· Reduces your labor costs
· Provides you with access to a deeper pool of experts
· Concentrates your people on core business needs
· Supplies staff instantly for the “what if” scenario
· Lets you take advantage of latest technologies without hiring the expertise

Hosting limits your business risk

· Keeps capital on hand
· Allows you to quickly and efficiently change plans
· Guarantees you stay online
· Implements your solution quickly
· Places your focus back on growing your business
· Gives you latitude to pursue new revenue-generating ventures

Things to Consider When Choosing a Hosting Provider:

1. Is the company financially sound? Profitable?
2. Do they deliver, not just guarantee, the uptime you need?
3. How much are they investing in new products & services?
4. How meaningful and clear are their guarantees to your business?
5. What experts will they make available to you?
6. Do they offer a range of hosting services to meet all your needs?
7. Do they provide unlimited support 24×7x365 or fee-based support?
8. Do they support the compliance standards that are critical to you?
9. Are they growing and upgrading their infrastructure?

Host Your Websites & Applications with the Power of Cloud Computing

           Shared resources always seem to bring some benefits when it comes to going green or helping the environment. Car pooling saves on gas and produces less pollution, mass transit systems claim to do the same. So it only makes sense that sharing computing resources and computer pooling would do the same and in fact it does.  The move towards Cloud Computing  will end up not only helping companies save money on their balance sheets but will also allow It Departments to help save the environment.

Right now servers everywhere are whirling away processing orders for online Christmas and Holiday shopping.  Ecommerce companies have been preparing for this all year, making sure their servers can handle peak loads and give shoppers the online experience they expect. So what happens after the holidays have passed and the server loads slow down? Most companies will still be running and maintaining all this equipment until next Holiday season.  It’s not uncommon for most companies to be running their servers at 20% capacity most of the year and while there is a lot of capital and resources (energy included) being used they are providing no economic or environmental benefit at all.

Cloud Computing  solves a huge problem in capital inefficiency and helps companies save energy and the environment, by allowing companies to easily scale up IT resources when demand is high and scale down when activity slows.

Tax season will be apon us soon and in Data Centers all around the world severs that were once confirming shipping address and sending holiday shopping orders will be helping tax preparers get the information they need to help their customers. All the while there are small Green Tech companies that are using shared Cloud resources, allowing them to innovate and do research that would have cost ten times what it does now.

Rich Alessandro

Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is a web service that makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud. It provides cost-efficient and resizable capacity while managing time-consuming database administration tasks, freeing you up to focus on your applications and business. Amazon RDS gives you access to the full capabilities of a familiar MySQL database. This means the code, applications, and tools you already use today with your existing MySQL databases work seamlessly with Amazon RDS. Amazon RDS automatically patches the database software and backs up your database, storing the backups for a user-defined retention period. You also benefit from the flexibility of being able to scale the compute resources or storage capacity associated with your relational database instance via a single API call. As with all Amazon Web Services, there are no up-front investments required, and you pay only for the resources you use.

The new Adobe® Flash® Builder™ for Force.com is a jointly developed integrated development environment (IDE) that gives developers a single, powerful tool for building cloud-based rich Internet applications (RIAs), which can easily be deployed to end users through the browser via the Adobe® Flash® Player, or directly to the desktop using the Adobe® AIR® runtime. These applications run seamlessly online or offline while taking full advantage of the security, scalability, and reliability of Force.com. Force.com enables developers to create and deliver any kind of business applications, entirely in the cloud and without software. Developers can use Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com to extend or enhance existing Salesforce.com implementations or build entirely new applications to provide customized user experiences for any business need.

Read More Here http://developer.force.com/flashbuilder

SAN MATEO, Calif. — October 14, 2009 —NetSuite Inc. (NYSE: N), a leading vendor of cloud computing business management software suites, today announced a new version of NetSuite OneWorld that lets Oracle E-Business Suite enterprise customers enjoy the cost savings and efficiency benefits of cloud-based business suites at the divisional level while retaining current investments in Oracle applications at the corporate level. With NetSuite OneWorld for Oracle, Oracle E-Business Suite customers can use NetSuite’s leading Software as a Service (SaaS) application to manage multinational, multi-subsidiary business operations in real-time and then roll up division-level transaction and summary data to gain a key enterprise-wide view of business operations.

This new offering from NetSuite targets a market opportunity that is gaining significant attention in the current economy as large enterprises struggle to control costs and gain greater efficiencies across key business processes. While some companies spend vast sums on corporate implementations of integrated suites like Oracle, these business software systems often have difficulty delivering the functionality and flexibility needed to manage and drive the multiple divisions that make up today’s typical large multinational corporations.

Read More here http://www.netsuite.com.au/portal/au/press/releases/nlpr10-14-09.shtml

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc said more than 2 million businesses now use its online office software, and the Web search leader is going global on Monday with an advertising campaign to lure customers away from Microsoft Corp and IBM products. The campaign, which starts Monday in countries including France, Japan and Britain, represents a rare foray by Google into mass-market advertising and underscores increasing competition to provide businesses with email and other office software. While Microsoft and International Business Machines Corp dominate the market for enterprise email, Google is trying to convince businesses to switch to its so-called cloud-based services, in which software is accessed over the Internet and maintained at Google’s data centers instead of on a company’s computers. Cloud-based services can provide cost and maintenance savings over traditional software, though recent high-profile outages — including an outage of Google’s Gmail last month — have raised questions about the reliability of online software for business users. Gartner analyst Tom Austin said most businesses will eventually switch to cloud-based email, but the process may take years. He noted IBM and Microsoft have introduced cloud products recently, and that Cisco Systems Inc appears to be preparing to offer its own cloud-based software. On Thursday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told investors during the company’s quarterly earnings conference call he intended to boost investments in new business initiatives. Google’s Apps business — which the company has said is profitable and generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue a year — is a tiny portion of Google’s overall business, which yielded almost $22 billion revenue last year. According to spokesman Andrew Kovacs, its Apps team has doubled over the past year to more than 1,000 employees. Google said Apps is used by 2 million businesses, up from 1.75 million in June. Those include both larger businesses that pay $50 a year per user for Apps, as well as firms with fewer than 50 employees that get the software for free. The company also said there are now 20 million active users of Google Apps, up from 15 million in June, although that number included students who use the free version Google provides to universities. Google’s marketing campaign, which it first rolled out in the United States in August, will feature ads in publications such as The New York Times, Forbes and The Economist, as well as on billboards at airports and train stations in various cities. Google Enterprise Product Marketing Director Tom Oliveri would not say how much Google is spending on the campaign, which runs through 2009. He said the creative part of the campaign was designed in-house by the Google Creative Lab team led by former Ogilvy & Mather executive Andy Berndt. (Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Richard Chang)

Microsoft announced today up Visual Studio 2010 will have additional testing options for developers to ensure quality code. Microsoft has included built-in tools for Windows 7 and Microsoft SharePoint 2010, and new drag and drop bindings for Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation. This is the first time that Microsoft has offered specific tools for building applications off of SharePoint. And with Visual Studio, developers can also build applications that cut across both Microsoft’s cloud computing platform Azure and on-premises databases. Microsoft is making it much easier for developers to build on the Azure cloud with these new tools. The specific Windows Azure tools for Visual Studio let developers build ASP.NET web applications and services that are hosted in Azure’s cloud services operating system. The tools also includes a SDK environment, and a simulated cloud environment that runs on the developer’s machine, so developers can test and debug their applications locally.