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Microsoft Changing Name of Windows Azure to 'Microsoft Azure'
It's official. Microsoft is swapping out the Windows Azure name and plans to start calling it "Microsoft Azure" next month.
The change in nomenclature will take effect on April 3, 2014, according to Microsoft's announcement today. While many may be scratching their heads over this name change, it was billed as a strategic decision by Microsoft.
"This change reflects Microsoft’s strategy and focus on Azure as the public cloud platform for customers as well as for our own services Office 365, Dynamics CRM, Bing, OneDrive, Skype, and Xbox Live," the announcement explained.
Windows Azure is Microsoft's cloud computing platform supporting .NET, but also Python, Ruby and Java languages. It also supports Windows Server and Linux operating systems.
The name change was leaked earlier to veteran Microsoft reporter Mary Jo Foley, who reported it on Monday.
Microsoft early on had linked Windows Server and Windows Azure together. The idea was to promise smooth transitions from premises-based server environments to Windows Azure. That's still a big focus, particularly with the Windows Azure Virtual Machines service launched last April.
Microsoft announced the availability of virtual machine images of Oracle's relational database management software earlier this month. Organizations can run those solutions in a virtual machine by selecting an image from the Windows Azure Management Console.
About the Author
Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.