The Cloud? Are you serious?

Microsoft is claiming to be a very seriouse player in The Cloud Business. The latest campaign with a kickof at the Washington University by Steve Balmer is called 'We are all in'. So what is the status and where are they going?

Microsoft is well known by most people. Most of the people ever using a PC since about 1980 is a customer (paying or not) of this company. Most company's are using one or more software products of Microsoft. Over 6 million copy's of their most famous product Microsoft Office sold.

The world is changing

The way Microsoft is delivering their software to the users is changing. They do not actualy delivering software, but aiming to deliver services. Office delivered this way is called Office Web Apps. If you question the strategic move to The Cloud check out the succes: in the first 100 days it went live, Microsoft picked up 20 million users for Office Web Apps.

More changes

Another BIG online area of Microsoft is productivity - 'Business Productivity Online Service' or short BPOS. BPOS encompasses products like Exchange, SharePoint, Office Communication Server (OCS) and Forefront. Microsoft is preparing to move into the Wave 14 with BPOS (now called codename Union). Exchange and SharePoint will move to the 2010 version, OCS and Live meeting are becomming Linc and the Office Web Apps are added to the offering.
SharePoint 2010 is the 4th evolution of the product (products like Office are in their 10th or so) and is becoming very mature. Since the focus on online Microsoft decided to design and develop all of their products with The Cloud in mind.

Microsoft is expected to unveil more about the new name and changes in the new version Oktober 19th.

These changes are even more interessting for Microsoft partners because they will be able to add their added value solutions on top of the platforms and ship the total solution. Expectations are very high.

Are you serious?

So IS Microsoft serious? The focus on the online business is succesfull. BPOS has seen 3x growth this year, with now over 40 million paid seats. These seats are comprised of smaller businesses and many large enterprises. Well that's serious business.

Also Microsoft recognizes the importance of differentiation in the markets. Live@edu is The Cloud offering based on BPOS targetting the Educational market, BPOS Federal is aiming on the US governmental market. BPOS Federal is told to be more secure.

Are you secure?

To be able to claim this more secure environment Microsoft has added up the suite with a set of industry standards:

• International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 27001
• Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) 70 Type I and Type II
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
• Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
• Title 21 CFR Part 11 of the Code of Federal Regulations
• Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2
• Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) compliance

If one desides to invest in such list of industry standard compliancy's this means they are pretty serious about their goal. BPOS Federal is available for US only. The list of additional industry standards apply to the normal BPOS offering.