Microsoft and Oracle clarify Cloud plans

The Cloud Computing movement is often characterised by the number of small, start-up organisations who threaten to steal business away from the industry’s more established names.

But in the past week, two of the IT industry’s giants have ramped up their commitment to web-based applications.

Microsoft, the epitome of desktop computing, is starting to put about the underlying roadmap to bring together its CRM and enterprise resource planning (accounting, manufacturing, logistics and service) software on within its Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), reported MyCustomer.com.

BPOS is based on Microsoft’s Azure platform for online communication, collaboration and business applications. As explained by Microsoft Business Solutions corporate vice president Michael Park, the company plans to move its online Dynamics CRM application to Azure, where it will run alongside Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint.

In the longer term, Microsoft is now planning to port the Dynamics GP (Great Plains), NAV (Navision) and other ERP families to Azure.

Oracle OpenWorld: “One big honking Cloud”
In San Francisco, meanwhile, chief executive Larry Ellison took a break from aiming potshots in the direction of Salesforce.com to introduce Exalogic Elastic Compute Cloud  - the company’s new “Cloud in a box” offering.

Exalogic will become Oracle’s rival to Azure, combining hardware, sofware, networking and storage in one package, complete with 30 servers and a host of Virtual Machines.

“It’s one big honking Cloud,” claimed Ellison.

On 30 September, K2 Advisory is hosting a webcast on the benefits and risks of Cloud computing in association with SAP, developer of the web-based Business ByDesign ERP suite. Sign up now to join this thought-provoking session.

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