You may have seen a letter in USA Today this morning suggesting that customers evaluating a licensing agreement with VMWare talk to Microsoft to learn more about how products and services such as the Windows Azure platform can enable a complete cloud-computing environment. We posted this letter because we feel that cloud computing represents the biggest opportunity in decades for organizations to be more agile and cost effective.  Also, while virtualization clearly played a role in enabling the move to IT-as-a-service by simplifying the deployment and management of desktops and datacenters, we feel that virtualization is only a stepping stone towards cloud computing. 

As we point out in the letter, for customers who like the efficiencies and cost savings of virtualization, the cloud offers additional benefits such as the ability to access core services quickly and roll out legacy software and new applications at Internet-scale without having to deal with today’s deployment logistics. Most importantly, as customers build out the next generation of their IT environment, we can provide them with scalable world-wide cloud computing services that VMware does not offer.

In addition to Windows Azure, we also offer many of the products customers use, know and trust today as cloud computing services, including Microsoft Office, Exchange, SharePoint and SQL.   If you’re at VM World, please stop by the Microsoft booth to learn more or see a demo.  You can also learn more about complete cloud solution here.  Read more about Microsoft’s presence at VM World here.

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