A battle royal is shaping up in the world of cloud computing between long-standing dominant software giant Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and its biggest threat of the past few years, internet runaway Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).
BusinessWeek is reporting that Microsoft plans to build 20 new data centers over the next few years to serve corporations large and small which would prefer to store their data in a secure environment and be able to access it over the internet. Google started along the same path several years ago with the same goal.
The data centers are likely to cost as much as a billion dollars each. Companies opting to use this type of service will be delegating the acquisition, maintenance, and security required to store large amounts of data while preserving capital for core business activities.
One novel approach in Microsoft's newest facility is to fill the 700,000 square-foot floor with prepackaged shipping containers instead of acres of racks containing servers. Each of the containers can hold 2,500 servers, and the floor can hold up to 224 containers. That's a potential maximum of 560,000 servers.
While Microsoft and Google may differ in their approaches to developing data centers, it will be the quality of their service and the price that will ultimately carry sway with corporate America and beyond.
The world of cloud computing as a service may be dominated by a few companies, but the number of players is not insignificant, and is unlikely going to be limited to Microsoft and Google. Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) has been sharing its technology for a few years. Companies like Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), EMC Corp (NYSE: EMC), and International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM) participated in the recent Cloud Computing Conference last week in San Jose, Calif., where there were 50 companies represented.
Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture and planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: I do not own shares of any of the companies mentioned in this article.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-14-2009 @ 2:17PM
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