SaaS Week

Via Techtarget:Microsoft managers described the company's' plans for delivering software as services, at the kickoff keynote to its yearly TechEd technical forum in Boston. Chief Technical Officer Ray Ozzie said a major era of technology change was ahead, one that he described as an era of "services disruption." Just last week, the company launched its Windows Live Dev site in beta mode at http://dev.live.com. The site is said to lower the barrier of entry to allow the greatest number of developers to participate. Windows Live is pledged to support multiple platforms and browsers, and support HTTP-based APIs. The site, in fact will serve in part as a so-called Web service mashup, using msdn.com to provide developer content. At TechEd Ozzie said he foresees a new era of "services disruption" as consumers and businesses use Web-borne applications to perform common tasks. According to Ozzie, "the services disruption will have significant impact on corporate IT and the way we think about both infrastructure and business solutions." Microsoft's services initiatives have rolled out as betas in the past year. A host of services under such names as Windows Live and Office Live are seen as Microsoft's hedge against Google and Yahoo, companies with large Web infrastructures that have begun to add browser-based software applications. With much still at stake in its desktop productivity businesses, Microsoft will have to carefully negotiate "software as a service" as it protects its strong position on the desktop. "We believe a blended client-server approach will help IT departments tackle these challenges," said Ozzie.

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