Microsoft Steps Up Cloud Offerings Amid Interest In Detroit

Microsoft says it's stepping up its cloud computing offerings amid surveys showing increased interest in cloud technologies in the Detroit area.

A Microsoft survey of more than 200 "IT decision makers" found growing interest in moving more IT functions to the cloud, according to Eric Abbott, a Microsoft online solutions specialist in the company's so-called Heartland area, which includes Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.

However, Detroit ranked last among 10 metro areas surveyed in terms of cloud computing activity among large companies, and eighth among 10 among small and midsized companies.

In any event, the survey did find interest. In the Detroit survey, more than half of respondents, 54 percent, said that investing in cloud computing IT has an impact on profitabilty.

When asked whether cloud computing is an "engine of innovation," nearly half -- 47 percent -- of Detroit-area IT decision makers said it is. And the next biggest plurality, 39 percent, answered that they didn't know.

When asked what business results cloud computing produced, 49 percnet answered costd savings, 45 percent answered faster deployment 43 percent answered IT workload was reduced, 42 percent said the cloud provided better security, and 40 percent said cloud systems were easier to scale up as a business grows.

Abbott said Microsoft isn't exactly new to cloud computing -- broadly defined as IT services delivered over a high-speed Internet connection. After all, Microsoft has been handling updates to products to Windows online, not to mention online gaming over the Xbox console and services like MSN.com or Bing, mean that "we've really been in the cloud services industry for over 10 years," Abbott said.

Abbott said Microsoft breaks cloud computing into three levels -- hardware-as-a-service, with companies offering data center services and infrastructure online; platform-as-a-service, like Microsoft's Azure offering, which places the Windows platform, the .Net framework and SQL database as a service; and the most familiar software as a service -- stuff like Salesforce.com.

Abbott said Microsoft is actively adding cloud computing offerings, including its productivity products -- Exchange for e-mail, Sharepoint for collaboration, and Link for instant messaging and conferencing, along with Microsoft Office, all offered online as a service for a set price per seat per month.