Cloud computing has posed a huge challenge to Microsoft's traditional software sales business

Abstract: According to foreign media reports, the Microsoft server and Tools Business Department sales reached 19 billion U.S. dollars each year, the main products are databases, servers and other types of software. The department's director, Satya-Satya Nadella, says Microsoft is now

According to foreign media reports, the Microsoft Server and Tools business Unit annual sales reached 19 billion U.S. dollars, the main products are databases, servers and other types of software. Satya Satya Nadella, director of the department, says Microsoft is now facing competition from companies in this area, such as Oracle, VMware, SAP and other High-tech companies involved in banking and aviation.

But Amazon is certainly the most Nadra worry, because the company is far ahead of its rivals in the size of its cloud servers.

In recent years, Amazon has won a large number of consumers by improving its services, such as a key shopping experience, fast shipping and Kindle E-book readers. But few of these consumers are likely to know that Amazon is still the dominant company in cloud computing. Its cloud computing services can be leased to other companies, and users can use them just as much as they want, making it possible for many small and medium-sized businesses and start-ups to use high-quality Web services, such as Instagram and Foursquare, Amazon's customers.

Microsoft also wants to take a slice of the market. In Tuesday, the company will launch a new service that will compete directly with Amazon's cloud services. Microsoft has been testing the service with customers over the past year. To show people how much they value cloud computing, Microsoft is committed to lowering service prices to the same level as Amazon's cloud services.

In a telephone interview last week, Nadra said, "In this field, we are the only rivals of the Amazon." He also said that even geographically, two companies have deep Roots (Amazon is headquartered in Washington State, Seattle and Microsoft's headquarters is in the same state of Redmond.) )

In fact, Nadra's comments are too optimistic. The size of Google and Rackspace is not much worse than Microsoft, and they all have the strength to compete with Microsoft for the second place in the cloud computing market.

In recent years, cloud computing has posed a huge challenge to Microsoft's traditional software sales business. In the past, people had to install software on their own machines, and now everything has migrated to the cloud. Clearly, Microsoft's management has noticed the problem and worked out its own strategy to transform itself into an important company in the cloud computing world.

A few years ago, Microsoft unveiled its Windows Azure cloud service, the first time the software company has dabbled in cloud computing. This service allows consumers to order database or server software according to their own needs. Amazon, by contrast, appears to be a bit more low-level, offering only the database storage space, computing time, and Internet access to consumers.

From this point of view, Microsoft offers services like a garage full of tools, and Amazon only offers the garage itself.

Microsoft's approach has a certain appeal to consumers. In fact, Windows Azure now has 20多万名 users, but it still has a huge gap compared with Amazon. While it is likely that Microsoft Windows Azure will continue to use cloud services on a large scale in the future, most of the companies that are currently keen on cloud computing services are start-ups. Amazon's services are fully responsive to their needs, and Microsoft is just getting started.

James Staten, analyst at Stetten, a market research firm, said of Microsoft, "there is no doubt that they have missed the opportunity." ”

Previously, Forrester had conducted several surveys of cloud developers, and nearly 70% of developers said they were using Amazon's infrastructure and only 30% were using Microsoft's services.

As a veteran of Microsoft for years, Nadra is still optimistic about the company's prospects for cloud computing, as Microsoft offers more diverse services than Amazon. In addition, software is Microsoft's strength, if customers plan to deploy their own data centers, Microsoft can quickly meet their needs.

"The cloud computing market is still in its early stages," Nadra said. Although Amazon is temporarily ahead, winner is still an unknown. ”