Attempting to give a damn...
... Sorry, unable to give a damn.
Microsoft has devised a fresh strategy to distract customers from a raft of tempting offers by rivals – it's changing the name of its cloud computing service Windows Azure. Windows Azure will be renamed Microsoft Azure tomorrow, a contact confirmed to us today following a scoop by Mary Jo Foley. The paradigm shift name change …
You MSFT-paid AC trolls are so easy to spot...
"Azure already overtook Amazon on hosting Windows servers,"
Rrrrriiiiiiightttttt, because SOOOO MANY of us wants to run Windows Server on Amazon as a cloud VM...
"so presumably Linux is next on the list."
RRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGHHHHTTTTTTTTTTTTT... HAHAHAHAHAHA^29
PS: Seriously - do you people REALLY believe this kind of utter crap when you keep bragging like this loudly in Redmond? Must be some sort of kinky group session...
Why would anyone run a WIndows VM turd on a Linux based cloud operation when is not cost efficient at all? The license fees alone to run a Windows VM is ridiculous .Cloud users generally mirgrate their apps from MS to Linux for that reason.
If MS did overtake Amazon in that area it is only because of the low volume or morons who would do that.
Leave Cloud VMs to Linux !
"Is it really going to be called Microsoft Azure tomorrow?"
Oh, yes. That leaves room for the next rebranding effort after a year or two. Most likely it will be Microsoft Cloud, or The Microsoft Network. Unless they'll have one of those rare hip'n'dandy moments and name it Ding or Fuzzy.
/damn, those corporate bingo sessions are making people way too cynical/
"Once upon a time, Microsoft was a world class marketing company. Obviously those days in the 1990's are long gone.
PS MS was never a software company....just look at their products."
It still is a marketing company. Their market dept STILL gets sway over what the engineers want to do. How do you think Windows 8 came to be vomited up? MS actually has some pretty decent engineers and if given half a chance I think they would come up with a decent product - ie efficient , little pointless bloat, secure. Sadly those half chances seem to be pretty few and far between though I think Windows 7 might have been a partial exception.
Marketing is far more important than getting the basics right.
Bob, how could any enterprise cloud vendor predict such an unlikely confluence of events as leap day occurring on February 29th? You might as well expect them to anticipate their SSL certificates expiring. This is way out there type unpredictable stuff. Acts of God and whatnot.
True. My opinion is that they'd do much better sticking with just "Azure".
Not that sense and marketing go hand in hand with Microsoft - they had "hotmail" as a strong brand, so fucked around with the name repeatedly until now nobody is entirely sure what Microsoft call it, just that it's "not as good as it used to be" (probably through confusion rather than anything else).
"Hotmail was a strong brand before Microsoft bought it."
Yes. I even had a mailbox there. Then I heard they bought it and immediately evacuated and moved somewhere else - just in time, because few months (weeks?) later they got hacked, in the most embarrassing amateur way and a crapload of people discovered their passwords were out in the open...
...never looked back, never moved back (sans some test accounts.)
"True. My opinion is that they'd do much better sticking with just "Azure".
In my opinion they'd do much better coming up with a better name than "Azure" than worrying about the "Microsoft" part.
"Azure" is a color term with no relevance or direct mental association with the product; you could call it "Microsoft Donut" and it would still have the same inherent meaning, that being "None". What the hell is "Microsoft Azure" to the average person? There is absolutely no brand recognition built-in to that term, yet they foolishly believe that it will come to pass simply with a name change away from "Windows".
Come up with a better name than "Azure" and THEN you can worry about brand recognition.
I think the Microsoft guys were told that the Cloud was going be the death of Microsoft, so they hate it.
When it came to naming their proprietary Cloud (an oxymoron), they went for blue (as in sky) azure which is what you have when all the Could is destroyed.
It does look as if the trinity of Cloud+mobile+social is doing a bit of damage to Microsoft's business.
If only they had left IE 6 in place, I am sure the Cloud would still be running slow and going wrong all the time.
I was thinking the same.
Is this the first sign of Microsoft admitting that Windows 8 and RT have irreversibly damaged the Windows brand?
Not that they'd ever have the balls to really undo the damage, they'll probably continue to blame it on things like piracy and install even more heinous licensing methods for the rest of us. It was nice when software 'just worked' out the box with minimal reconfiguration needed.
Consider the sad probability that several somebodies are likely getting paid several handsome salaries to formulate the "strategy" and the "communications" behind this.
Can you imagine meeting your maker with this on your record?
Droid: I operationalized an emergent reimagining of corporate communications, materializing meaningful cognizant evolutions in the conceptual metaspaces of user consciousness.
Maker: You changed the word "Windows" to "Microsoft".
Droid: Indicative cultural signifiers demonstrated -
Maker: You go to hell.
Microsoft needs to rename "Windows" for the desktop, mobile, and server market also. This isn't 1985 anymore, and there's been so much damage done over the years in terms of the negative connotation Windows has promulgated. GUI's were cool in 1985. Here are some stupid names Microsoft has came up with thus far: Bing, Zune, Azure, Bob, and Windows. "Microsoft" is actually a good name, so they really need to hire some people that have better taste.
The computers Microsoft write for are not really called Micro, nowadays, since perhaps they are more powerful than mini-computers of yesteryear. Long time since writing BASIC for hobby microprocessor computers. I assumed microprocessor software was reduced to Microsoft.
More problematic, is that tablets and phones do not typically have windows, tending to have full screen interaction.
I assume Azure refers to the (colour of the) sky or sea; Windows implies a user-interface, despite how poor a simile that is. Azure for sky-blue would seem a good fit for something for your clouds to float in.
Dibs on Screens and Panels
This is the company who thought that because 'people' liked running a single application full screen on their tablets, that they'd obviously like to be able to do that on their fucking great big (very expensive) desktop monitor... does anyone really hold out any hope that a company which thinks like that can come up with any idea which 'people' are going to buy into?
" This is the company who thought that because 'people' liked running a single application full screen on their tablets, that they'd obviously like to be able to do that on their fucking great big (very expensive) desktop monitor..."
Of course, you could do that already. Microsoft brilliance was in making a new version of windows where you had no choice(*) - thus removing the stress associated with making the decision.
And let's face it, who doesn't want a computer costing hundreds with the same functionality as a 30 quid tablet?
(*) Yes, I know the traditional desktop is there, but MS were pushing metro/not-metro (or whatever) as the next big thing.
From Windows Azure to Microsoft Azure. What's next? Microsoft Teal? Microsoft Red? What is so special about azure? It's part of the atmosphere. Do I store stuff in the atmosphere or in a cloud? This is akin to lipstick on a pig. I guess they are so embarrassed by Windows 8 that it no longer provides the name-branding so important in selling other products and services.
And, oh. Microsoft Azure is already here!
https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/
Oh the excitement of it all! My heart is racing!
I bet they spent a $500,000 on all the development and testing to change the name, and the content can still be examined by the NSA and the Chinese equivalent.
Aha! Microsoft are far too clever for you, I'm afraid. I sat in a convention room during a TechEd demo where the froth-men were showcasing what was to become Azure. The room was full of socially delinquent geeks (sorry, employees) who were sworn to non-disclosure, however recording the event on a Windows phone, secret slides and all was ok.... The codename for Azure at the time? Red Dog.
Never underestimate the power of the er, Red side.
But I agree, any negative sentiment around Windows will probably only be polarised by the name Microsoft and (still) confused by the identity of 'Azure'.
...somone @Microsoft has discovered the fact that their biggest problem is the very bad reputation of Windows, I've heard following on a platform in a larger European city (the train was again late): "The train company probably 'upgraded' to Windows".
It is a standing joke here and we are considered a "Microsoft country".
Little engineer wage slaves in their protected environment. Safely isolated from the rest of the world and able to pontificate about how "marketing is a waste of time" and "engineering is all that matters", totally unaware that without the marketing department they would be out of a job. Occasionally, a talented nerd will come up with an idea for a new product and bravely let go of mummy employer's hand to set up on their own, only to realise that actually building the code is only about 10% of the work needed to create and sell their software - messing about with SEO, adwords, etc.
Marketing may not be to our taste but it makes a difference. Get your heads out of your cubicles.
Marketing is a form of propaganda. If done well, it serves as a useful communication vehicle, and doesn't anger people very much, but it's the abuses that are the problem. Geeks just happen to be quite sensitive towards the abusal.
Oh, and the most evil characteristic of bad propaganda - it polarizes people, turns them against each other.
Azure is actually quite good for .Net website hosting. That's the limit of my experience with it as the PHP/MySQL option sucked (due to persistent timeouts caused by limited connections to the third-party database hosting they use for MySQL). Availability, performance and pricing is, as ever, a matter of lies, damned lies and statistics depending upon how you look at it and who you ask.
It's a shame, really. Dropping 'Windows' from the name makes sense in that 'Windows' is a dying horse with a pretty bad smell in these days of OS/server/form factor alternatives, but replacing it with 'Microsoft' won't help until the automatic mental association with 'Windows' in the public consciousness has gone.
It's a necessary step but only the first of a large number needed as they 'pivot' (yes, I too hate that word but for this it seems appropriate).
Personally, I get the feeling that Nadella is embarrassed with Windows and if it weren't for support life-cycle expectations and residual revenue he'd like to phase it out. They have enough other billion-dollar businesses to survive quite happily, and the dead-weight of Windows is dragging them down.
In fairness, I guess it's difficult to turn your back on a product that brings in billions - especially if you have shareholders - even if you know the association is losing it's lustre.
I haven't played Buzzword Bingo for almost a day.
Seriously, though, it makes me a little bit sad seeing Microsoft flail around. The company clearly has no idea where it's going. But just a little bit sad, because then I remember that the reason it's flopping is because it decided to out-Apple Apple at treating users as mildly retarded sheep.