Microsoft Talks Up Cloud, Slaps Google, Apple

Will the iPhone 4 turn out to be Apple’s equivalent of Microsoft’s Vista debacle? Does Google really read your e-mail and send out vans to spy on you? Unlikely to the first, and no to the second, but you wouldn’t know it from Kevin Turner’s address at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference.

Turner, the software giant’s chief operating officer, took several shots at Microsoft’s competitors, while at the same time urging the partners in attendance to move to the cloud. Code Guru has the story.

WASHINGTON — In the final keynote session of Microsoft’s annual Worldwide Partner Conference, COO Kevin Turner did everything but put on the war paint as he rallied the troops — some 14,000 partners converged here from all corners of the globe — for a year of what promises to be epic battle with the software giant’s major rivals in numerous business lines.

Turner’s marching orders for the year ahead ran along four points, but two received particular emphasis: that Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is betting the farm on the cloud, and the competition must be crushed. (Driving the adoption of Windows 7 and improving customer satisfaction fleshed out the list, but couldn’t match the frenzy that gripped Turner as he outlined the other two.)

Read the full story at Code Guru:


Microsoft Lauds Cloud Biz