Microsoft Officially Releases Windows Azure Platform

Microsoft took the wraps off its Windows Azure platform today at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles. Windows Azure is central to the company's cloud computing strategy and provides a development and deployment platform in the cloud. Additional Windows Azure features were outlined to help developers build and monetize their applications using Microsoft's cloud computing platform. Windows Azure is set to go into production on January 1, 2010.

Ray Ozzie, Microsof'ts chief software architect, explained how Windows Azure and SQL Azure were the foundation for its cloud computing strategy and one that underpins the company's "three screens and a cloud" vision, where users can interact with cloud computing services "across PCs, phones and TVs".

It was then left to Bob Muglia, Microsoft's president of the Server and Tools Business, to explain the details and announce new features of the Windows Azure platform. He explained the company is bringing to fruition a common developer platform for servers and services, which "will enable developers to continue using familiar .NET Framework and Visual Studio tools and technologies, as well as third-party tools such as Eclipse, to create and monetize applications that run on the server and as services in the cloud.”

New Windows Azure features include:

Microsoft Pinpoint - the company's attempt to create their very own app store where Microsoft partners can market and sell their applications.

Windows Server AppFabric Beta 1 - a set of integrated, high-level application services that enable developers to more easily deploy and manage applications spanning both server and cloud.

ASP.NET MVC2 beta - a free, fully supported framework that enables developers to rapidly build standards-based Web applications through rich asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) integration and enhanced extensibility.