Microsoft launches Azure cloud platform

Product will be available in the new year, but billing system will not be ready until February

Microsoft's Azure cloud platform - open for business

Microsoft launched the Windows Azure Platform at its Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles this week, saying the product would be available in 21 countries from 1 January.

However, firms will not be able to actually pay for such services until 1 February because Microsoft's billing system won't be set up until then, said Microsoft's chief software architect, ex-Groove chief Ray Ozzie, in his keynote address at the conference.

Ozzie said: "Windows Azure and Azure SQL have been built specifically for this era of cloud computing, with users accessing the cloud from PCs, phones and the web - either delivered via a private or public cloud."

Microsoft has a hybrid strategy in terms of cloud computing. It is looking to become a public cloud provider - with Windows Azure - while allowing firms to use local hosting providers or roll out their own private clouds.

The release of SharePoint 2010, which offered network delivery of Office 2010 applications, allows them to do just that.

Ovum senior analyst Mike Davis said: "I don’t think what Microsoft has here is game changing, but is an incremental step giving it a lot more credibility than it has had in the past.

"Microsoft used to be a 'one-trick pony' but with innovative companies like Google and others in the market it can't play that game anymore. So it's looking to provide its software to organisations as they want it," added Davis.

For UK and European firms, the datacentres in Dublin and Amsterdam will be the primary locations from which public cloud applications will be delivered. Microsoft is touting "geo-replication" as a data and availability safeguard for customers, meaning data can be synchronised between the two centres should a large outage occur.

Microsoft's strategy and roadmap for extending application development to the cloud was outlined by server and tools business president Bob Muglia at PDC.

He said: "We're offering a common developer platform for both servers and services, enabling developers to continue using familiar .NET Framework and Visual Studio tools and technologies, as well as third-party tools such as Eclipse, to create and monetise applications that run on the server as well as services in the cloud."

In addition, Muglia made three other related announcements during his speech at the PDC.

- The delivery of Windows Server AppFabric Beta 1, a set of integrated, high-level application services that enable developers to more easily deploy and manage applications spanning server and cloud.

- A plan to offer Windows Server virtual machine support on Windows Azure, for a better virtualised infrastructure across private and public cloud computing.

- The beta of ASP.NET MVC2, a free package enabling developers to rapidly build standards-based web applications through asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) integration.