Windows Azure Help Cloud + End Microsoft BizSpark competition Guangzhou opened the curtain

The Microsoft BizSpark Competition, which is designed to support startups, opened in Guangzhou May 3, and the theme of the event is "cloud + End". The BizSpark competition aims to help start-ups of software development and Internet services achieve rapid success in early stages of development by providing resources such as software, technical support, markets, and financing channels. This year's BizSpark competition offers incentives that also include $6500 worth of annual benefits.
 
In the last two years, the two words "cloud" and "start-up company" appear in the same sentence more and more often. 62% of respondents said that "cloud computing is a key factor behind the recent entrepreneurial boom" after the Manchester University Business School interviewed Chi Yu Anglo-American executives this year.
 
Indeed, the characteristics of cloud computing perfectly fit the needs of startups:
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accompanies company growth
  most startups have limited capital but often have to invest in IT infrastructure. Especially for startups in mobile and internet, they need to consider not only the speed of service access, but also the backup plan after hardware failure, or risk losing users-consumers will not use a new product that needs to be loaded for half a minute or from time to time.
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A major feature of cloud computing services is the flexible pay-for-demand model. For Windows Azure, for example, it charges an exact amount of money to gigabytes, hours, and so on, avoiding overinvestment. Windows Azure also offers a free trial, with the start-up company's early business development of IT infrastructure spending approaching zero. Over time, cloud service unit costs will be lower. This is the inevitable result of technology development, cloud services on a fee-for-demand model to transfer the cost of hardware depreciation to Windows Azure platform.
 
Do not waste every penny
 
The vast majority of network services have fluctuations in the flow of traffic, business social platform general working hours ushered in the peak, the weekend to the bottom; the game and video services are completely the opposite. If you use the traditional IT model, startups can only prepare resources according to the peak, the trough stage wasted.
 
Cloud Services revolutionized this pattern, and with Windows Azure's load-balancing function, startups can automatically shrink resources at the service access trough without human intervention. For example, it's like a summer when no one in the house turn off the air-conditioner, for granted, but not in traditional IT mode.
 
Furthermore, Windows Azure is a technology developed by Microsoft, but it also supports LinuxVirtual machines, at the same time startups can choose any language, architecture and database that they are good at, or migrate existing products directly, without wasting human resources on rewriting code.
 
Seize every opportunity
 
The chances of success are not uncommon, and the opportunity for startups to become famous overnight may come from intense media coverage, a successful viral marketing or an entrepreneur's precise grasp of demand. But after becoming famous, can corporate servers withstand surging traffic, storage, and computing requirements? If the service downtime or slow response, the user must be a lot of loss, the second opportunity do not know when to come again.
 
Public cloud services, such as Windows Azure, support flexible scalability, and startups can deploy near-limitless virtual machines and storage space based on demand, which takes minutes--as a traditional model--often just enough to buy hardware.
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Focus on core competencies
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Cloud services save more than just hardware inputs. Whether it is their own data center, or from the Internet Data Center to rent the computer room, you need to manage the server, install and maintain the operating system, patching software. For many start-ups, recruiting the right person is a challenge. Platform-level cloud services, such as Blob storage, are completely stripped of management requirements, from hardware to operating systems to running environment management to the Windows Azure service staff, helping startups focus on core business.
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According to data from the Manchester University School of Business Report, nearly two-thirds of respondents said cloud computing helped companies put more resources into core business innovation.
 
Reduce the cost of failure
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The old adage that failure is the mother of success is the right thing to do with startups. Although every entrepreneur wants to succeed, more than half of startups will disappear within five years of their inception.
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What if the company's new product experiences a low or even complete failure? Buy their own servers and other hardware can not return the original price to the manufacturer, will inevitably bring heavy losses. Cloud computing does not have this concern, the start-up company does not need to sign the long-term contract by the year, the month, two mouse will be able to completely suspend the service. For startups, reducing the cost of failure increases the chances of a comeback.
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Technology start-ups need to survive with fewer resources than larger companies to achieve more innovative ideas, and cloud computing is becoming an indispensable tool for startups to achieve this goal.