ReadWriteEnterprise

Something I said over the weekend before Microsoft's Build 2011 conference in Anaheim kicked off: It's not about the experience; it's never about the experience. Computing is a process, and what's important about it is what gets done. This week, a big transition process was started, and a lot got done. And in a few cases, we heard what we've been needing to hear for some time: "Message received."

Microsoft announced today that Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie is stepping down from his position. Although Microsoft does not intend to replace Ozzie, he will assist in transferring his responsibilities during a transition period before focusing on consumer entertainment projects at Microsoft. Ozzie has a long history in enterprise software, having worked for Lotus, IBM, Groove Networks and eventually Microsoft.

Ozzie joined Microsoft in 2005 when the company acquired Groove, which Ozzie co-founded, and turned it into SharePoint Workspaces. Ozzie replaced Bill Gates as Chief Software Architect in 2006. Ozzie shared his cloud-centric view of enterprise collaboration in his now famous Internet Services Disruption memo, pioneered Azure and ran Microsoft's social computing research lab. What does his departure mean for enterprise software?

With Microsoft and Salesforce.com locked in market and legal combat, the "open-source" (see update below) SugarCRM is quietly building its own empire. The company has landed over 6,000 customers with its focus on customization and openness. With the newly released SugarCRM 6, the company is attempting to improve its user experience while retaining the flexibility that's gotten it this far. Also, SugarCRM is also now available on Windows Azure and has integrated document collaboration via Box.net.

You're hard pressed to find any sector of the tech economy that is getting more financing than cloud computing.

Today's announcement by Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft is a good example. The two tech giants announced a partnership today that is valued at $250 million.

Why are these ventures getting such an influx of revenue? If content is king, then infrastructure is the castle in the cloud.

When you launch a make or break initiative like Windows Azure, you better get it right.

Well, from our vantage point, Microsoft got it right. How? In front of a sea of developers at the Professional Developers Conference, Microsoft trotted out a group of geek all-stars who showed how they are using Azure to do some pretty cool stuff.