Took the perilous journey to the wilds of San Diego last night to attend  "Cloud Computing : Impact on Business and Architecture."  This seminar was sponsored by the San Diego Software Industry Council (www.sdsic.org).

Microsoft provided the speakers, and the focus of the evening was on Microsoft's new public cloud environment called "Azure."  Probably to the speakers angst ( the speakers were Ned Curic - MS Platform Strategy Advisor, and Woody Pewitt - Technology Evangelist), much of the evening Q&A was taken up with question from the audience asking to compare Azure with services provided byu other cloud players such as Amazon and Google.

Much to the attendees angst, most of the answers were "I don't know," or "it is done with magic."

Now if you go to Microsoft's website for Azure (www.microsoft/azure ) you can download a wide range of white papers and drill into the product.  Not a bad product, but I'd say it is still a leap or two from being ready for prime time.  Once it is released to the public and rolling, we will finally get access to all of the Microsoft vision of the next generation "the network is the application and computer" services.  This takes all of Microsoft's current applications and development space, including .NET, Live Services, SQL Server, MS Dynamics CRM, putting them on top of the network-enabled cloud environment Azure.

Even more important to me was the enthusiasm of the attendees.  Those persons ranged from the San Diego Super Computing Center, to Sony, VMX Media, and other dynamic people who are obviously - like me - trying to get their heads and business planning wrapped around the implications of being cloud-aware.

 The room definintely had a buzz on, and it is clear the IT trigger is about to be pulled on cloud targets.  When the IT guys start getting excited about outsourcing their operations into a third party data center, you know something positive is happening (or they had 80% of their budget pulled).

Check out the SDSIC the next time you are in San Diego and have a free evening.  You will find a good group of people, and lots of very stimulating conversation.  Well worth the trip.