How Microsoft Plans to Sell Cloud to Companies
When it’s difficult to sell technology, tech vendors start selling terminology. That holds true for cloud computing, too. While cloud has yet to prove its utility as a utility computing technology, marketers are packaging and repackaging their traditional offerings to lure enterprise buyers with baits of different types.
[ Also Read: Ali Shadman Reveals the Secrets of Cloud Computing ]Look at Microsoft. In an online broadcast Tuesday, Jan. 17, from its headquarters, Satya Nadella, president of Microsoft Server and Tools Business, laid out how Microsoft’s private cloud solution will help businesses move faster, save money and better compete in 2012.
He highlighted how companies, such as webcast participants Lufthansa Systems, T. Rowe Price and Unilever, can use Microsoft System Center 2012 to build and operate private clouds for the delivery of business applications across both private and public cloud platforms.
[ Also Read: IBM Offers Cloud-Based Social Media Analytics ]System Center 2012 is available now in a Release Candidate as a single, integrated private cloud management solution for the first time, says the company.
[ Also Read: Microsoft Launches Office 365 Cloud Service ]“IT leaders tell me that private cloud computing promises to help them focus on innovation over maintenance, to streamline costs and to respond to the need for IT speed,” Nadella said.
“We are delivering on that promise today. With System Center 2012, customers can move beyond the industry hype and speculation, and progress into the here and now of private cloud.”
[ Also Read: Microsoft Brings Always-on Office on the Cloud ]According to the company, System Center 2012 integrates eight separate component products into one unified solution, streamlining installation and reducing the time it takes to deploy from days down to hours.
It says the number of product versions has also been simplified, so customers will be able to choose between the Standard and Datacenter editions of the product, based on their virtualization requirements.
[ Also Read: Will SaaS Disappear in the Cloud? ]And because System Center 2012 Datacenter edition licensing covers unlimited virtual machines, customers can continually grow their private clouds without additional licensing costs for virtualizing their infrastructure and applications, says Microsoft.
[ RMN Digital comments: Chief Information Officers (CIOs) must not get carried away with the hype being created by cloud hawkers. Instead of making any fresh investments in cloud platforms, CIOs must find ways to optimally use their pre-existing IT infrastructure with a view to conserve costs for their companies. ]Photo courtesy: Microsoft
