InformationWeek reported yesterday that Microsoft is coming out of the closet with their new "Cloud OS". It is a version of Windows supposedly written from the ground up for this platform.

Cleverly named "Windows Azure" (blue sky), it is getting plenty of attention. Microsoft is the big player that many developers love to hate, but they cannot be discounted in the OS space. That said, I'm a bit skeptical.

MS is playing catch-up. They don't expect to release from beta for another year. And if history is a predictor of the future, then it will be the 3.0 version that will really work and start to sell on a large scale. I clearly remember that Windows 1.x and 2.x were non-starters. It was 3.1 that got the attention of my development team. The same phenomenon seems to have haunted MS for other products too (e.g. Office, SharePoint, etc.).

The big story here for me is the fact that Microsoft is confirming the direction of computing - in the cloud. They must know that traditional server purchasing patterns are shifting, and their hold on operating systems is slipping. Not only is their bread and butter OS market changing rapidly, but the logic of cloud computing is undeniable. Balmer and Gates have seen this coming for years. It is very curious that they came late to the party.

Cloud computing is here. Microsoft may not be on top of it, yet it is clearly investing heavily to prevent being left behind. Other leading companies such as Amazon, Google, and Salesforce.com are improving their platforms now.

It is a fun time to be building a business utilizing such astounding power and efficiency. Azure probably won't affect us for a few years, but the cloud is a fantastic place to be. LoadStorm is a product right for our time.