If you think cloud computing is hard to define, try deploying it. That’s one of the main appeals and pitches from Microsoft with its Azure services. It wants to make cloud computing simple and easy to deploy. Datamation checks to see if it’s all that.
One of the more interesting problems facing startups today is the double bind that cloud computing offers innovative new software companies.
On the one hand, deploying new innovative software in the cloud is a godsend for startups trying to appease the IT department’s often obstructive attitude toward new software. This is particularly true of anything that requires IT resources to install and manage.
On the other hand, being able to support a newly developed cloud-based offering means building and deploying a cloud infrastructure with the up-time and redundancy that cloud customers have come to expect, before a single contract is signed and a single customer dollar has been put in the bank. It’s a daunting dilemma for those three guys in a garage with a great idea that they’re trying to turn into a software product.
Herein lies Microsoft’s biggest cloud opportunity: Azure has a role to fill as a low-cost, Windows-ready deployment option for new cloud computing offerings. With Azure as the deployment platform, startups can offer 99%-plus up time, failover capacity, and all the other terms and conditions that can make a fledgling startup’s support infrastructure look like a seasoned cloud-based offering.
