Microsoft No Longer Rains on Open Cloud

Microsoft is no longer raining on open Cloud. The Redmond company has committed to engaging in dialog with representatives of the group of companies behind the Open Cloud Manifesto. The move comes in line with the software giant's support of an open Cloud, as the company only had criticism for the development process associated with producing the principles and guidelines for interoperability and standards support in cloud computing. Meanwhile, at the end of the past week, the Open Cloud Manifesto went live and can now be accessed online.

“Microsoft welcomes the opportunity for open dialogue on cloud standards. To that end, we have accepted an invitation to meet on Monday at 4pm in New York at the Cloud Computing Expo with other vendors and members of standards bodies. From our perspective, this represents a fresh start on the conversation – a collaborative “do-over” if you will,” revealed Steven Martin, director, CSD Product Management Microsoft.

Reuven Cohen, founder and CTO of Enomaly, one of the companies involved in authoring the Open Cloud Manifesto, explained that the Redmond company's position resulted as a consequence of miscommunication, rather than of the manifesto's lack of openness. “In our discussions it remains apparent that Microsoft was and still is committed to an open cloud ecosystem. On Monday I will be meeting with a team from Microsoft in New York to discuss how we can foster a stronger open relationship between our two organizations,” Cohen stated.

At this point in time however, Microsoft has only declared that it is open for dialog and is supporting the concept of open Cloud. However, the Redmond company appears to want a tad more control over the Open Cloud Manifesto than simply agreeing to follow principles already set into place. If it decides to put its weight behind the Manifesto, Microsoft will join the ranks of such companies as Akamai, AMD, AT&T, Cisco, IBM, Novell, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, and VMWare.