Today, Microsoft launched Azure which is the Microsoft OS for the cloud. I am not going to enter into technical details or compare Azure with AppEngine or Amazon Web Services. Something else grabbed my attention.
Take a look at these two links AppEngine and Azure . Is so easy to read and understand Google’s language and so annoying to read the corporate language of Microsoft.
An excerpt below to prove my point.
What Is Google App Engine?
Google App Engine lets you run your web applications on Google’s infrastructure. App Engine applications are easy to build, easy to maintain, and easy to scale as your traffic and data storage needs grow. With App Engine, there are no servers to maintain: You just upload your application, and it’s ready to serve your users.You can serve your app using a free domain name on the
appspot.comdomain, or use Google Apps to serve it from your own domain. You can share your application with the world, or limit access to members of your organization.App Engine costs nothing to get started. Sign up for a free account, and you can develop and publish your application for the world to see, at no charge and with no obligation. A free account can use up to 500MB of persistent storage and enough CPU and bandwidth for about 5 million page views a month.
What is the Azure Services Platform?
The Azure™ Services Platform (Azure) is an internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a set of developer services that can be used individually or together. Azure’s flexible and interoperable platform can be used to build new applications to run from the cloud or enhance existing applications with cloud-based capabilities. Its open architecture gives developers the choice to build web applications, applications running on connected devices, PCs, servers, or hybrid solutions offering the best of online and on-premises.
Azure reduces the need for up-front technology purchases, and it enables developers to quickly and easily create applications running in the cloud by using their existing skills with the Microsoft Visual Studio development environment and the Microsoft .NET Framework. In addition to managed code languages supported by .NET, Azure will support more programming languages and development environments in the near future. Azure simplifies maintaining and operating applications by providing on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage web and connected applications.
Both companies are presenting similar services, but somehow Google language is easier to read.
Seriously, this the lamest conculsion i have ever read. “Google language is easier to read”, did you come up this all by your self or did you get help.
Actually it’s not a lame conclusion. Microsoft’s marketing speak is always nothing more than corporate buzzwords with no substance. Cripes, just go to Microsoft’s pricing page for Azure and see if there’s actually any pricing laid out. I’ll save you the trouble–there’s isn’t. Happy guessing!
Although english is not my primary language I had no trouble understanding Microsoft’s explanation.
Actually, Microsoft’s description is a little bit more complete, in the sense that it says clearly where things are being hosted and which languages and frameworks your developers are expected to know to get started. Unless you’re the owner, it’s a bit easier for a boss to understand something in the lines. Oh, it looks cool, but last time I’ve heard we use Java and Python in my business, so, no, thanks”
When I look at Google’s “There’s no servers to maintain: you just upload the Application, and it’s ready to serve your users” I can almost complete the sales pitch with “But Wait! Get AppEngine today and receive an incredible starter pack for Google Enterprise Apps”
I am not also discussing the technical merits of both services, I am testing both for a personal project, and didn’t have the chance to test the two services in a professional, engineering based approach.
And David, it seems to me that Azure doesn’t have a price because it is still a pre-release. Lately, after the Vista fiasco, and after years of problems with rushing things to release, it seem that Microsoft has started to learn in the hard way the perils of selling something not ready yet.
I wrote a comparison of the pricing on my blog:
http://blog.dantup.me.uk/2009/12/microsoft-windows-azure-vs-google-app.html
Even though I’m a .NET developer, the expensive of running a low traffic site on Azure pushed me to investigate App Engine. Now my blog is hosted there and scales way beyond the traffic I’ll ever get!