Wired Magazine, the only physical magazine I still have a subscription for, had a great article on Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect. It talks about how his past at Lotus, IBM and Groove and how he got to where he is at Microsoft.

The article is long, but worth the read if you have 20 minutes. It talks about cloud computing, or as I have been calling it “Consumer Computing Cloud“. It goes into the details of Microsoft’s cloud OS called “Red Dog” is (now called Windows Azure). Below is an excerpt, see the full article here.

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Ray’s Plan: 4 Ways to Win

Not long after Ray Ozzie arrived at Microsoft in 2005, he wrote a memo declaring that the company’s survival hinged on a shift to cloud computing. Three years later, Ozzie and Microsoft are finally announcing (though for the most part not yet releasing) key products designed to fulfill that promise.

Microsoft’s long-awaited “operating system for the cloud” doesn’t run on a laptop—it runs on the company’s thousands of servers. Customers develop their Web-based businesses to operate on Microsoft’s data centers, and Windows Azure allocates resources as needed.
Expected launch date: Late 2009
The competition: Google App Engine and Amazon EC2; already available

Codename for Azure Services Platform, a set of sophisticated tools to help developers manage their own cloud-based services and Web apps.
Availability Now (in limited preview)
The competition Free open source tools

A service built on Red Dog that allows people (PC and Mac users) to synchronize all their files, photos, and music with all their devices.
Expected launch date 2009; now in public beta
The competition Apple MobileMe

The next major Office release will include relatively complete Web versions of Microsoft’s crown jewels—Excel, PowerPoint, Word. Users can subscribe or access free versions supported by ads.
Expected launch date 2010; some apps may appear earlier
The competition Google Docs, Yahoo Zimbra, and Zoho—all available now

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We will all hear more about Azure next year I am sure. Maybe someone at Microsoft would like to speak at Web Wednesday Singapore on this? Call me…… wait no, call Andy. His number is 555-ANDY.