Yesterday I attended the very first Open@4 Press Event at Microsoft headquarters here in the Netherlands. Open@4 (the meets start at 4 PM) are informal press meetings to be held quarterly, with a different topic each time. This time the topic was Cloud Computing. What can Cloud Services do for you?

Introduction

First there was a general introduction about the Cloud and Microsoft Cloud Services.

IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service (to move to)
Infrastructure and storage capacity to host and manage applications and services.
PaaS – Platform as a Service (to build on)
Windows Azure is a platform existing of an operating system, (relational) database and web services with on-demand scalability (pay for what you use).
SaaS – Software as a Service (to use)
Subscription based on-demand applications and services. For examples:
– Business productivity Online Suite (BPOS)
– Exchange Hosted Services
– Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online
– Office Web Apps
Also think about Hotmail, Messenger, Windows Update, MSN, Bing and Xbox Live.

There are 3 kinds of Clouds:
– Public (all can see)
– Personal (only I + those I allow can see) 
– Private (think Corporate, employees only)

Announcements

There were also some announcements made. First announcement made was a partnership agreement with Regus in the Netherlands: Customers of Regus in the Netherlands will be able to make (fully web based) use of BPOS.

Furthermore we can expect the following in the next months:
– Windows Live Release 4
– Windows Intune – PC management client, currently in beta
– Dynamics CRM Online – Customer Relationship Management
– Business Online Services
– Live@EDU
– Windows Azure Appliance – turnkey cloud platform that customers can deploy in their own datacenter

Windows Live

After the introduction and announcements it got divided into 3 groups (Business, Customer….).

Of course I attended the Customer session as this was about Windows Live. A presentation was given about the new Windows Live Messenger and Hotmail.

Taking notice of anything that could be new I only found one thing you may or may not have discovered yourself yet, if you are using the beta: Starting this week you can also find MSN in Messenger’s full view, so you can keep up-to-date with the latest news!

Afterwards there was some time to mingle/network. I very much enjoyed this informal meet and look forward to the next one.