Blog: Ozzie responds: Is Microsoft Azure just 'Hailstorm' revisited?

Ozzie responds: Is Microsoft Azure just ‘Hailstorm’ revisited?

Posted by Mary Jo Foley

At the Professional Developer Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles, I’ve heard a few long-time Microsoft watchers wondering aloud whether Microsoft’s newly unveiled “Azure” isn’t simply Microsoft taking another run at “Hailstorm.”

I had a chance to ask Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect, that very question this week.

First, a quick refresher: For those who weren’t following the Microsoft juggernaut back in the late 1990s, Hailstorm was Microsoft’s first pass at a .Net services platform. “HailStorm” technologies will enable a new world of computing where all the applications, devices and services in an individual’s life can work together, on their behalf and under their control,” explained Microsoft in a 2001 press release. (Sounds eerily like Live Mesh/Live Services, doesn’t it?)

Microsoft ended up killing off Hailstorm before it ever really launched. One of the main reasons was privacy: Microsoft customers were nervous about trusting Microsoft with hosting their data. And the idea of an on-premise, customer-managed Hailstorm cloud was not fleshed out.

Isn’t Azure — Microsoft’s new cloud platform, of which Live Services are one key component — just Hailstorm Take 2? And if it’s not, how is it really different, I asked Ozzie.

…

“It’s amazing that at this point in time, as compared to that
long ago, (that) we still don’t have that one nailed from a privacy and
ownership perspective. That was what so many people complained about. But right
now you’ve got Open Social and Facebook Connect, and both of them want to still
create walled gardens, open walled gardens, whatever that is, but that they are
lending you your information back and withdrawing it within 24 hours or
whatever.”

“I think we need to get past that, and what we’re
trying to do with Mesh and the terms of use. We’re trying to get to a point
where you literally do own your data, we bring the personal of the personal
computer to the cloud where it’s your stuff, and if you do something with
someone, it better be a symmetrical synch relationship where you’re giving them
rights, they’re giving you rights, because I just don’t see how it works. We
can’t create a walled garden; it’s just not going to work.”