New Microsoft server chief preps cloud push

Microsoft Australia’s director of its server business group, Phil Goldie

Microsoft Australia’s director of its server business group, Phil Goldie, is preparing to work with enterprises on software deployment and licensing when its Azure cloud platform becomes available in April.

Goldie, who joined Microsoft in January, is talking to CIOs about the cloud licensing model and how it relates to existing on-premise software.

“The Azure licensing model is not complex and is pay-per-use,” Goldie said.

The concern for CIOs and other on-premise software managers is reconciling differences between the two models and whether software needs to be re-licensed if it moves to and from the cloud.

Goldie said Microsoft is working to simplify the difference between cloud and on-premise licensing.

Azure is set to be launched to the local market in April.

“Azure is a great platform-as-a-service (PaaS) opportunity and there are already about 1000 local developers writing applications for it,” Goldie said. “The ISV model is to take applications and run them in-house or on Azure.”

“CIOs are charged with using technology to add value to the business and when you can move applications to and from the cloud IT becomes dynamic. It’s not an all or nothing approach.”

Microsoft is pushing the hybrid private-public cloud model, a model which Goldie says lets CIOs decide what the “best infrastructure combination is”.

“How do we follow the hype with reality? There are already applications on Azure enterprises can use,” he said.

“Rather that going to a CIO and talking about cloud computing, I will be talking about applications.”

There are no Azure data centres in Australia, but Goldie said that could change if the local demand grows.

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