It's no surprise that Microsoft has its eye on the cloud. Cloud computing, that is.
What is surprising is the news that the Microsoft planns to build 20 datacenters at a cost of about $1 billion each in hopes of dominating the cloud.
Now that's chump change compared to the TARP, but in a more rational world $20 billion is still real money, and there aren't that many techs out their with pockets that deep. Google is in that financial league, and it's clear that Microsoft is hoping to "out Google" Google.
"Google has done a great job of hyping its prowess. But we're neck and neck with them," Debra Chrapaty, Microsoft's vice president for Global Foundation Service, told Burrows.
I'm not so sure about neck and neck Maybe from a technology perspective, but Google seems way ahead in the mindshare game. Microsoft, the organization, is not structured efficiently to dominate the architecture of the cloud. There are several negatives that Microsoft will need to overcome.
