Microsoft this week is hosting its annual Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Washington D.C.  The company is using it as a forum for a a couple announcements. The biggest announcement  was the software giant’s continued commitment to transitioning to a cloud computing superpower.

“We are at an inflection point in technology history,” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said at the show. “For customers, cloud computing creates tremendous value, which translates to massive opportunity for Microsoft and its partners. As in past technology transitions, Microsoft will help partners embrace the industry’s transformation to realize their opp

Microsoft announced the Windows Azure platform appliance, which it describes as the first “turn-key cloud services platform,” and one that is already in use by companies such as Dell, Fujitsu, and HP. The broader Windows Azure platform allows customers to deploy “clouds,” or datacenter-based computing resources, on demand, lowering costs during downtime and expanding capabilities seamlessly during need. These clouds are typically hosted off-site, but those based on the Windows Azure platform appliance can be hosted on-premise, within a corporation’s own datacenters. Microsoft calls these private clouds.

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