ReadWriteWeb

Before the term "cloud computing" became a throwaway word used to describe everything from web mail to Facebook, people were dreaming of a day when the OS would disappear and everything we needed would run from the cloud. Fast-forward to 2008, and we can tentatively say that the moment has arrived...well, almost. A company called Good OS (yes, the same company behind the failed Linux-based Everex desktops introduced last year) has introduced new software called Cloud which boots a computer directly into a customized Chrome-like web browser. Now that this cloud OS has arrived we have to wonder: is this really what we wanted?

I'm at the Microsoft PDC in Los Angeles, where I was among a small group of bloggers and analysts who had a roundtable today with Microsoft executives Ray Ozzie (Chief Software Architect), Bob Muglia (Senior Vice President of the Server and Tools Business) and Amitabh Srivastava (Corporate Vice President, Cloud Infrastructure Services). The topic of conversation was Microsoft Azure, the cloud computing operating system announced earlier today. I also had a 1:1 briefing with Daz Wilkin, a program manager in Microsoft's platform strategy group. All of this to get to the bottom of what Microsoft Azure is and what it means for the Internet, consumers, and businesses.