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Ballmer "Announces" New Microsoft Initiatives
Running a more subtle playbook in times past, Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer made a pseudo-announcement ahead of the Professional Developer Conference by dropping newsworthy information into seemingly standard interviews.
In doing so, Mr. Ballmer took advantage of the blogging universe’s "report anything" standard to spread the word about upcoming Microsoft services without having to actually commit to anything substantial.
Still, these intentional "leaks" give some insight into the coming months at Redmond.
Cloud Computing Operating System
One of the more interesting statements from Ballmer was that Microsoft will soon launch a "cloud operating system" that will run .NET applications.
The cloud operating system has nothing to do with Windows 7 or any sort of patch/upgrade for the much criticized Windows Vista operating system. As with most leaks, there were not too many details, but he did mention it would probably be called "Windows something." Go go Gadget-Creativity!
Microsoft has a bit of a history of using words and phrases that already have some meaning attached to them, and then applying their own definition, so time will tell just how much this cloud OS stacks up against what the technology community is expecting.
However, the goal of the cloud OS is cross-platform browser-based applications, so we are at least in the right ballpark. The catch, of course, is the .NET piece.
The .NET framework download is now up to 197MB which already raises a lot of eyebrows inside the Microsoft sphere of influence. You can about imagine how this will play in Unix-land and Apple-ville.
The cloud OS is supposedly aimed at developers working on cloud applications, not so much at users who will be running the cloud applications.
Still, if you’ve used a .NET based Internet application recently, you know that it generally requires you download .NET first. This isn’t a problem if you are already a Windows user because chances are you have already, or you will soon, need the .NET framework for something, so the idea of a 200MB download to run a web app doesn’t seem far fetched.
However, if you run a very clean system (few additional installs of any kind) or a Unix or Apple system, the very idea of downloading 200MB for what might be a simple calendar application is preposterous. The difference runs the danger of destroying the hoped for cross-platform nature of cloud computing applications.
Another interesting question will be how the new cloud operating system integrates with the already officially announced strategy of extending the online capabilities of certain products like Exchange, SharePoint and Dynamics CRM.
One possibility is that the new cloud OS fits tightly within this strategy and, in fact, may be being used inside Microsoft to develop those new online extensions. Another possibility is that the cloud OS has nothing to do with the online versions.
Mr. Ballmer did emphasize that Microsoft has no intention of getting rid of the standard desktop-based Microsoft Office products. He also mentioned that there was no push to migrate full functionality versions of the Office products to online or cloud based versions either.
The cloud OS is to be officially unveiled in the beginning of November this year.
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