Azure Services Platform annouced today at PDC

Watching the moves we have been making in the services space over the last couple of years have gotten me really excited about our vision, strategy, and roadmap for Software + Services.  I'm long overdue for a good Software + Services blog post, and time will prevent this from being it, but I couldn't let our announcement today pass without comment.  Expanding Windows Live Services to richly complement the PC and empower consumers, building out Office Live to complement Microsoft Office and empower consumers and small businesses, and Launching Office Online to give our business customers the power of choice to run their Microsoft solutions on premise or in the cloud - were just the beginning.  Today we announced the Azure Services Platform: a group of cloud technologies, each providing a specific set of services.  These services include:

- Windows Azure: a cloud operating system for running Windows applications and storing their data

- .NET Services: a set of services in the cloud for access control, service bus, and workflow that can be leveraged by cloud-based or on-premise applications

- SQL Services: a cloud database and supporting data services

- Live Services: providing access to data from Microsoft Live Applications and others; allowing synchronization of this data between the cloud, desktops, and devices; finding and downloading applications, and more

The announcement is here: https://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/oct08/10-27PDCDay1PR.mspx

The Azure website (where you can register for the Community Technology Preview!) is here: https://www.azure.com

And a good introductory whitepaper is here: https://download.microsoft.com/download/e/4/3/e43bb484-3b52-4fa8-a9f9-ec60a32954bc/Azure_Services_Platform.docx

MUCH more to come as PDC continues this week - stay tuned :)