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Microsoft To Release Cloud-Oriented Windows OS

Posted by timothy on from the name-tba dept.

CWmike writes "Within a month, Microsoft will unveil what CEO Steve Ballmer called 'Windows Cloud.' The operating system, which will likely have a different name, is intended for developers writing cloud-computing applications, said Ballmer, who spoke to an auditorium of IT managers at a Microsoft-sponsored conference in London. Ballmer was short on details, saying more information would spoil the announcement. Windows Cloud is a separate project from Windows 7, the operating system that Microsoft is developing to succeed Windows Vista."

10 of 209 comments (clear)

  1. Microsoft Dark Cloud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Causes Rainy Day

  2. Don't hold your breath by Drooling+Iguana · · Score: 5, Funny

    This sounds like vapourware to me.

    --
    ... I'm addicted to placebos
    1. Re:Don't hold your breath by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I suspect you're closer than you think.

      Some time ago, rumour had it that Microsoft had allocated ~300 of its best engineers to work on Midori, a product based on its Singularity research OS.

      Singularity, for those not familiar with it, is a highly impressive piece of work. It's not actually Windows at all, in fact it bears absolutely no resemblence to any existing OS architecturally and didn't even support graphics when we were last able to look at it. But it was a ground-up fresh new OS that had the following characteristics: entirely .NET based (with extensions), extremely robust and extremely high performance.

      In particular, Singularity is able to go about 30% faster on I/O intensive apps than traditional server operating systems like Linux and Windows because it doesn't use hardware process isolation, but rather does everything in software. Hmmm, an OS with no graphics support, no applications, but which can run .NET applications far faster than the competition. Sounds basically ideal for a server OS or "cloud windows" if you ask me.

  3. Wonder if by thammoud · · Score: 5, Funny

    they have an HTML version of the Blue Screen Of Death.

    1. Re:Wonder if by Shaitan+Apistos · · Score: 5, Funny

      But you need to install silverlight to view it.

  4. RMS was right! by MPAB · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/30/2146250

  5. Good Call, Microsoft by kat_skan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Good Call, Microsoft. With five editions of Vista competing with three editions of XP and nine editions of Server 2008 (including three that are just the regular versions without the hypervisor software), plus separate 64-bit versions of everything, the Windows product line wasn't nearly diffuse enough.

  6. What it is... by elfguy · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's not new and it's not vaporware, it's also not Windows on the cloud. It's called Microsoft Mesh. It's been in used for many months, although only the first few services are available. Right now you get PC to PC and PC to Web synchronization of data. It's pretty much the best document remote access / sharing solution right now.

    MS wants to add applications too, which many people compare with Google Docs but it's not that at all. It's basically a way that people will be able to use the same app from anywhere, have multiple people use the same application thru this mesh. How it will end up working is.. as of yet unknown.

    The upcoming PDC conference in October will be all about Mesh, which is what Balmer is referring to.

  7. Re:Microsoft Cloud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...lacks silver lining.

  8. Re:Don't hold your breath So hazy i can't see... by QRDeNameland · · Score: 5, Funny

    Project/Code Name?

    Since this is Slashdot, how about...

    "Insensitive Cloud"

    --
    Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.