I just read this article in Fortune, headlined “Microsoft’s new brain”. It’s about Ray Ozzie but the real take aways for me were:
1) how Microsoft think about their new services strategy.
2) the report on how the new management at Microsoft work. I had understood that Ozzie played an important role but not that important.
Neither had I realized the vast amounts of money that needs to be put in to hardware and infrastructure investments. Some quotes:
“Just think about where there are windmills, dams, and other natural power sources around the world, and that’s where you’re going to see server farms,” he says.
“The people who could build a viable services infrastructure of scale,” he says, “are companies that have both the will and the capacity to invest staggering amounts of money – staggering amounts.” Think billions, many billions.
Google is rumored to have a million servers around the world and, according to a knowledgeable source, is already the top electricity user in at least one large U.S. state. Google would not comment.