Why do you think that Microsoft has a weak position in the cloud industry? If Microsoft really had a weak Cloud strategy, its competitors wouldn't be resorting to tricks like this.
I don't think anybody offers customers an easier self-hosted-to-cloud-hosted migration strategy than Microsoft. They are offering (or will be offering) all of their server-side products "in the cloud". Using Microsoft's stack, you develop your applications the same way, using the same libraries, and the same protocols, regardless of whether you are deploying to your own server or to Microsoft's. Most of Microsoft's competitors require you to rewrite applications to get them to work on the cloud.
Most of its competitors have very poor desktop integration, whereas Microsoft is integrating support for its cloud hosting directly into its its desktop software (including Windows and Office). For example, Windows 7 has a pretty sophisticated caching and synchronization infrastructure built into it so that desktop applications can work on documents/databases/email in the cloud with minimal latency. Microsoft Office already has built-in support for Sharepoint, which means that it has built-in support for Microsoft's cloud offerings (Office Live and Microsoft Online).
> Using Microsoft's stack, you develop your applications the same way, using the same libraries, and the same protocols, regardless of whether you are deploying to your own server or to Microsoft's. Most of Microsoft's competitors require you to rewrite applications to get them to work on the cloud.
The key phrase being "using microsoft's stack".
Open source versions of other cloud stacks are already somewhat functional. When they become usable, I can run them on my server.
I recall reading here that the project making an open version of Google's stack is being helped by google. If that is the case then it isn't quite the same.
Because it helps adoption of their API. They will be the premium provider for their platform, and the bigger it gets, the more business they get. Plus many businesses won't consider a technology that has only one vendor, so having an open alternative opens doors.
The original claim was that users benefitted from open alternatives. Is there any reason why users don't get those benefits if the "closed" source helps provide those alternatives?
I note that open alternatives to the Microsoft stack were seen as a good thing, yet alternatives to the Google stack are somehow second class because Google helped.
Is it fair to mention that some of the alternatives to the Microsoft stack were developed with some help from Microsoft?
I don't think anybody offers customers an easier self-hosted-to-cloud-hosted migration strategy than Microsoft. They are offering (or will be offering) all of their server-side products "in the cloud". Using Microsoft's stack, you develop your applications the same way, using the same libraries, and the same protocols, regardless of whether you are deploying to your own server or to Microsoft's. Most of Microsoft's competitors require you to rewrite applications to get them to work on the cloud.
Most of its competitors have very poor desktop integration, whereas Microsoft is integrating support for its cloud hosting directly into its its desktop software (including Windows and Office). For example, Windows 7 has a pretty sophisticated caching and synchronization infrastructure built into it so that desktop applications can work on documents/databases/email in the cloud with minimal latency. Microsoft Office already has built-in support for Sharepoint, which means that it has built-in support for Microsoft's cloud offerings (Office Live and Microsoft Online).