Ray Ozzie begins the keynote with explaining why Software + Service is going to happend, by trying to answer if "this cloud thing" is different from the architectures used today in the enterprises. This of course is the case both in terms of technology and business issues. For example what about the policy issues with laws and other regulations when the information is distributed and stored in another country.

Windows Azure is announced as Microsoft webb tier (for cloud computing). It has many things that we today associate with Windows, but also many new things to be able to scale for the cloud. For short "an operating system for the cloud". This is Microsoft answer to Amazon, Salesforce and Google. Windows Azure is today released as a CTP. It is a platform that will be hosted by Microsoft and not something that the enterprise installs. On top of Azure Microsoft has Live Services, .NET Services, SQL Services, SharePoint Services and Microsoft Dynamc CRM Services.

What makes Windows Azure special?

• Scalable Hosting.
• Operating Systemm For The Cloud.
• Automated Service Management.
• High Availability.
• Rich Developer Experience. No need to deploy to the cloud to be able to test.
  • Skill Transfered from existing knowledge of WIndows Server and .NET (C#, VB)

First Azure demo: Hello World demo of the cloud SDK. Creating a new web application results in two projects, one regular ASP.NET project and one Cloud project. Creating a regular Hello World sample which is then deployed through the Azure Developer Service. This will allow you to easily start, but also to easily scale up by adding more power when demand increases. Check out the impressive result at http://hellocloud.cloudapp.net. :)

Next a demonstration of http://www.bluehoo.com a social application (supposed to be consumed by mobile phones) that is run on Windows Azure. One of the key points in the demo being the possibility to easily scale from two servers to twenty, by just changing a xml configuration file.

We are now entering the 5th generation of computing; from Monolithic, over Client-Server, Web and todays SOA and tomorrow (2009+) Services. There are important requirements for services: Interoperability, Business Processes, Identity & Security, Data Management & Compliance and Services Management. One goal is to stop us from thinking on 24/7 availibility and that being a natural feature of the plattform that we use.

.NET Services: Service Bus, Access Control and Workflow Services. This are the first services that will be made available. Identity is a core and important feature, that must let the user control their own identities, it must be open and interoperable. This federated identity is based on "Geneva".
Microsoft SQL Services: Database, Data Sync, Reporting, Data Mining, ETL and Reference Data.

It's difficult to grasp everything in this keynote and to make a fast analysis of the messages. I think it is safe to say that this will change the way that we look at application development, no matter how successful this initative will be. For the existing business (not start ups), I can feel that Microsoft might overestimate how fast business will be able to move to the cloud. In my own experience there are really not many business that have managed to move to a service oriented architecture (which in the timeline mentioned above is where we are right now), and now Microsoft (and others) want them to move to the cloud. This might be possible for many of the Microsoft Enterprise Systems, but I guess that it will take a lot longer until many of todays systems (ERP, Financial and so on) will be able to do the same; or else there will be new players on the market. Startups that tryies a more best of breed approach. I wonder what the Reference Data part of SQL Services will be like?