Microsoft To Run Linux On Azure 189
snydeq writes "After years of battling Linux as a competitive threat, Microsoft is now offering Linux-based operating systems on its Windows Azure cloud service. The Linux services will go live on Azure at 4 a.m. EDT on Thursday. At that time, the Azure portal will offer a number of Linux distributions, including Suse Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2, OpenSuse 12.01, CentOS 6.2 and Canonical Ubuntu 12.04. Azure users will be able to choose and deploy a Linux distribution from the Microsoft Windows Azure Image Gallery and be charged on an hourly pay-as-you-go basis."
Re:The LOL of the day, actually, a ROTFL (Score:2, Interesting)
"PS, I love Linux as a server, and it runs my Rails stuff very well, but "Linux on the Desktop"? Seriously? Does anyone believe in that anymore?"
Well, since 2000 I've been working for four companies; all of them supported linux as their main desktop OS, so go figure.
Re:The LOL of the day, actually, a ROTFL (Score:3, Interesting)
PS, I love Linux as a server, and it runs my Rails stuff very well, but "Linux on the Desktop"? Seriously? Does anyone believe in that anymore?
Yes. It's called Android. More nettop devices are coming with it. Via is about to kick out a $49 all-in-one motherboard that comes with it and should offer acceptable web browsing performance (with Opera Mobile) and media playing performance, and Angry Birds, so it should succeed. There's a number of $99 boxes which are pretty credible and turnkey... And you can treat it like ordinary Linux if you choose. The current economic situation is leading more and more people to look at inexpensive "alternatives" so... yes, Linux on the desktop is real. It's just going to be Android.
Re:So what's new? (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft currently doesn't make money on anything but Windows and Office -- everything else is either runs at loss, or has so much money sunk in it while it was being developed or ran at loss, it will take significant amount of time to turn profit.
Citation? Exchange - for example - would appear to be a very profitable product, XBox has been hugely profitable for the last 5 years
MSFT operating profit by division. [businessinsider.com] Xbox comes under "Entertainment and Devices", a division that has historically been a loss leader. The vast bulk of the profit is from Windows + Office + Windows Server. Basically Microsoft's profits as a whole are largely dependent on sales of Windows and Office: profits jump 31% on strong Office sales [bbc.co.uk], profits stagnate as Windows sales fall [techradar.com].