November 3rd, 2009

Microsoft to show Office Mobile 2010 at TechEd Europe

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 12:44 pm

Categories: Channel, Corporate strategy, Network service providers, OEMs, Office, Office 2010/Office 14, SharePoint Server, Windows Mobile

Tags: Mobile, Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Corp., Office Mobile 2010, Microsoft Office, Office Suites, Software, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft officials have shared details about two of the three different versions of Office 2010 that are in development: The Office 2010 client and the Office Web Apps. Next week, at the TechEd Europe conference in Berlin, they finally are slated to show and tell more about the third: Office Mobile 2010.

Update (November 6): A Microsoft spokesperson called today to tell me the Office team isn’t quite ready. This session on Office Mobile 2010 is being cancelled for TechEd Europe. I’m betting it’ll be on the PDC agenda instead, so we’ll have one more week to wait….

Office Mobile 2010 is the version of Office that runs natively on Windows Mobile phones. The most recently released version debuted in 2007. That release is Version 6.1 and includes mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and a rudimentary version of the OneNote note-taking application.

The Office Mobile 2010 release will include “a refresh to the Office Mobile client apps, an all-new SharePoint Workspace Mobile app and redesigned mobile access to SharePoint site content,” according to a synopsis of the “Microsoft Office Mobile 2010 In-Depth” session that is slated for November 12 at TechEd. That session also will cover the back-end infrastructure powering the new Office Mobile release, according to the write-up. The presenter is listed as Outlook Product Manager Dev Balasubramanian.

Here is the entire synopsis:

OFS01-IS Microsoft Office Mobile 2010 In-Depth
Presenter: Dev Balasubramanian
Thu 11/12 | 13:30-14:45 | Interactive Theatre 1 - Red

In this session we cover all of the mobility technologies and scenarios enabled as part of the Office 2010 “wave”. You’ve heard us talk about how Office 2010 spans the PC, Phone and Web — come learn what the Phone pillar is all about! Collaboration scenarios, mobile workflows, and mobile access to data, people, and corporate resources are all part of what makes Office on the phone a new experience in 2010. A refresh to the Office Mobile client apps, an all-new SharePoint Workspace Mobile app, redesigned mobile access to SharePoint site content, as well as the infrastructure needed to support it, are covered as part of this session.

In early October, I blogged about a screen shot that showed a mock-up of Office Mobile 2010 that seemed to indicate it the new mobile suite would be customized to work on Windows Mobile 7, the version of Microsoft’s mobile OS expected to be available by the end of 2010. That shot also showed off what looked like some kind of SharePoint application. Microsoft officials did not comment on that screen shot or its implications.

At the recent Microsoft SharePoint Conference, executives noted that Microsoft has a number of enhancements coming to SharePoint for mobile. According to an October blog post by SharePoint Corporate Vice President Jeff Teper:

“We both improved the experience for mobile web browsers and are introducing a new SharePoint Workspace Mobile client so you can take Office content from SharePoint offline on a Windows Mobile device. These clients let you navigate lists and libraries, search content and people and even view and edit Office content within the Office Web App experience running on a mobile browser.”

To be clear, Office Mobile 2010 won’t be the only way to run Office apps on mobile devices. The Softies have said Office Web Apps also are going to be able to run on unspecified phones from Microsoft and other vendors. Supposedly when the public beta of Office Web Apps hits later this month, Microsoft will be ready to share more details how and when specific phones and browsers will support Office Web Apps.

I have lots of questions about Office Mobile 2010. Will it run on platforms other than Windows Mobile? When will it go to testers? Will the final version be released alongside the other two Office 2010 releases (around May/June 2010)?

What do you want to know about Office Mobile 2010?

September 11th, 2009

Microsoft: Windows Mobile 7 not on the PDC docket

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 2:25 pm

Categories: Channel, Corporate strategy, Mobile services ("Pink"/"Rouge"), Network service providers, OEMs, PDC 2009, Resellers, Speech, Telecommunications, Windows Mobile

Tags: Microsoft Windows Mobile, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows, Mobile Operating Systems, Operating Systems, Mobile Applications, Handhelds, Wireless And Mobility, Software, Hardware

I (and others) have been wondering and speculating whether Microsoft might be holding its Windows Mobile 7 cards close to the vest and be planning to show, or at least talk about, Windows Mobile 7 at this year’s Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in mid-November.

The answer is no, a company spokeswoman definitively told me on September 11. If Microsoft does talk mobile at its developer conference, Windows Mobile 6.5 — and not even the rumored interim 6.5 update designed to get Win Mobile working on capacative touch screen devices– is the only content on the docket.

Here is the e-mail from the spokesperson:

“As I’m sure you know, Microsoft and its partners are squarely focused on introducing the Windows phone brand through the launch of Windows Mobile 6.5 in October [October 6], which includes working closely with ISVs and developers to add even greater value to the Windows Mobile platform and new business opportunities for its mobile channel ecosystem. To properly set your expectations, wanted to let you know that Microsoft is not planning any sessions for PDC that look past the Windows Mobile OS in market at that time.”

I followed up and asked whether Microsoft might be privately showing anything post Win Mobile 6.5, or maybe talking/showing new bits in the keynotes or hallways at the conference, which kicks off November 16. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that Windows Mobile 7.0 was still expected to go to phone makers in November 2009 and show up on phones in the first part of 2010….

The answer came back again as no. The spokesperson reiterated that Microsoft would not be doing anything related to Windows Mobile 7 at the PDC.

I guess this could mean one of two things:

• Windows Mobile 7 really isn’t going to debut before the end of 2010, after all. If Windows Mobile 7 phones were coming out in the first part of 2010, as originally expected, wouldn’t Microsoft be working now with developers to help them write apps for the new mobile-phone operating system?
• Microsoft is not planning to use the PDC to communicate with the Win Mobile developer community but could be holding some other public/private conference where it will share more on Win Mobile 7.

What will be on the PDC 2009 docket? So far, there are sessions for those interested in/working with Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, .Net 4.0, Visual Studio 2010, Office 2010 and Windows 7. Those are the primary topics planned for the PDC, which is slated from November 16 to 19 in Los Angeles.

There were a couple of other interesting Windows Mobile tidbits this week. Long Zheng over on istartedsomething.com got Microsoft officials to acknowledge that the company is attempting to speed up the delivery of new Windows Mobile releases by working toward allowing updates to be downloaded directly to users’ phones (some time in the future), rather than requiring OEMs to preload the new bits.

And IT Pro UK managed to get Microsoft to confirm what I had heard months ago: That the Mobile team’s plan is to work more closely with fewer handset makers by providing them with chassis specs to which they can build. One such chassis spec: The Windows Mobile 7 one that a source provided me a few months back.

September 1st, 2009

Windows Mobile 6.5 phones coming October 6

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:01 am

Categories: Apple, Channel, Code names, Corporate strategy, Network service providers, OEMs, Resellers, Windows Mobile

Tags: Phone, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Microsoft Corp., Windows Mobile 7, Microsoft Windows, Telecom & Utilities, Mobile Operating Systems, Operating Systems, Mobile Applications, Handhelds

Microsoft officials had been saying for the past couple of months that the first Windows Mobile 6.5 phones would be available in October 2009. Today, they got more specific and said October 6 will be the general availability date.

(October 6 also happens to be the day of Microsoft’s first-annual consumer-products open house event for invited press and analysts in New York City. Entertainment and Devices Division President Robbie Bach is slated to show off Windows Phones, the uber-brand for Windows Mobile phones; the Zune HD; Xbox 360; Windows 7; and Microsoft hardware that will be available for the holidays.)

As expected, Microsoft is planning to launch its My Phone (”Skybox”) service for storing and accessing mobile-phone information and the new Windows Marketplace for Mobile online app store on October 6, as well. A redesigned version of IE 6, built-in support for Adobe FlashLite (but not Microsoft’s own Silverlight) and Microsoft Office Mobile (but not the 2010-based version) are also slated to be available as part of the Win Mobile 6.5 release.

In addition to sharing the retail-availability date, Microsoft also made public on September 1 a list of phone makers and mobile operators who will be offering Windows Mobile 6.5 phones.

In North America, they include AT&T, Bell Mobility, Sprint, TELUS and Verizon Wireless, and phone manufacturers HP, HTC Corp., LG Electronics, Samsung and Toshiba Corporation. In Europe, Microsoft’s 6.5 partners are Orange, T-Mobile International AG and Vodafone Group Plc, and phone manufacturers Acer, HTC, LG Electronics, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba Corporation In Latin America, partners include Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM) Brasil, and phone manufacturers HTC, LG Electronics and Samsung
And in Asia/Pacific, Microsoft’s Win Mobile 6.5 partners are NTT DoCoMo Inc., SoftBank Mobile Corp., SK Telecom, Telstra and WILLCOM Inc., and phone manufacturers Acer Inc., HTC, LG Electronics, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba Corporation.

Microsoft didn’t offer any new details today about its Windows Mobile 7 roadmap or expected partners. Windows Mobile 7 is expected to be Microsoft’s “major” phone OS release, with support for multi-touch and capacitive screens allegedly on the Win Mobile 7 feature list. Microsoft had been targeting Fall 2009 as the date via which it planned to get Win Mobile 7 code to phone makers. But according to a recent report — which Microsoft refused to confirm or deny — partners may not be getting the Win Mobile 7 bits until the first part of 2010, resulting in a Win Mobile 7 release date of late 2010, instead of the until-recently-expected spring 2010.

Starting with Windows Mobile 6.5, Microsoft is launching a concerted effort go after the consumer audience more than just the business one and is recruiting more consumer-app developers to build gaming, music and other consumer-oriented apps for the platform. But that doesn’t mean all Windows Phones running Win Mobile 6.5 are going that route, said Paul Bryan, Senior Director of Business Experience Product Management on the Windows Mobile team.

“We are trying to meet the needs of a broader set of customers and provide more balance between work and play,” Bryan said. “The business side (of the Win Mobile business) will continue to be strong, with the availability of Exchange and Outlook, a new version of Office Communicator coming, and better security and manageability.”

Anyone out there clamoring for a Win Mobile 6.5 phone? Why or why not? (I’m asking because I am due for a phone upgrade and am on the fence whether to finally give Windows Mobile a try….)

August 12th, 2009

Microsoft and Nokia to bring Office Mobile, Communicator to Symbian phones

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 8:40 am

Categories: Channel, Network service providers, OEMs, Office, Office 2010/Office 14, Office Live, Resellers, SharePoint Server, Windows Mobile

Tags: Netscape Communicator, Phone, Nokia Corp., Mobile, Symbian Inc., Microsoft Corp., E Series, Advertising & Promotion, Microsoft Office, Marketing

Microsoft and Nokia are working together to port Microsoft Office Mobile, Communicator Mobile and other Microsoft services to select Nokia phones running the Symbian operating system, the pair announced on August 12.

Nokia is planning to offer to its Nokia E Series phone users a version of Office Mobile; a version of Office Communicator Mobile (Microsoft’s corporate instant messaging service for mobile devices), System Center device management service and other Microsoft collaboration services.

The E Series are just the first phones to which Nokia plans to bring the Microsoft services; it will expand availability across its portfolio to other Nokia Symbian phones over time.

Microsoft’s Office Mobile and Office Communicator products currently run only on Windows Mobile phones. Nokia is not planning to offer any Windows Mobile devices, Nokia’s Executive Vice President for Devices Kai Öistämö said during a call with press and analysts on Wednesday. The pair did not share a timetable as to when the Symbian ports of these products would be done or any development details regarding how they will be ported from Windows Mobile to Symbian.

Update: The only product to which there’s a timetable commitment from the pair is Office Communicator for Mobile. Microsoft and Nokia said that will be on Nokia E Series phones some time in 2010. When I asked Microsoft and Nokia officials for details about how they plan to get Office Mobile and System Center Device Manager on the Symbian operating system, officials had no information to share. It sounded like the two have a roadmap but nothing more at this point. They had nothing to say about how and if the Symbian Silverlight port would figure into the development plans or even whether Office Mobile would need to be ported vs. rewritten to get it on Symbian.

Microsoft and Nokia already have distribution deals around Windows Live Services, Silverlight and Exchange ActiveSync for Nokia phones.

The next version of Office Mobile for Windows Mobile is in development. Microsoft still has yet to deliver a widescale test build of it, but it is expected to be finalized in 2010.

Microsoft also has been working on another version of Office called Office Web Apps, which will allow users to view and annotate Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote documents via Internet Explorer, Apple’s Safari, and Firefox. The Microsoft-Nokia deal announced today has nothing to do with this Web-based version of Office, which also is due in 2010.

August 11th, 2009

Microsoft and Nokia expected to bring Office to Nokia phones

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 1:44 pm

Categories: Channel, Corporate strategy, Network service providers, OEMs, Office, Office 2010/Office 14, Windows Mobile

Tags: Phone, Nokia Corp., Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Office, Office Suites, Software, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft and Nokia are expected to announce on August 12 details of a distribution agreement for Microsoft’s Office on Nokia mobile phones.

Microsoft has yet to field a test build of its Office 2010 for Mobile product. It also still has not provided testers with access to its promised Office Web Apps, the browser-based Office 2010 complements of a number of its Office apps.

It’s not clear whether Nokia will preload a customized version of Office Mobile on select models of the company’s phones or simply offer Office Web Apps access — which any vendor with a cellphone with a browser will be able to do — or do both. On August 11, Microsoft officials declined to comment.

Update (August 12): The answer: It’s Office Mobile, not Web apps, being ported to the Symbian phones. The pair also are going to port Office Communicator to Symbian and make various Microsoft collaboration services available on Nokia E Series (and other unnamed Nokia phones) going forward.

Microsoft and Nokia are expected to share more specifics about the Office deal during a press conference at 11 a.m. ET on Wednesday. Stephen Elop, president of Microsoft Business Division, and Kai Oistamo, executive vice president for Nokia Devices, are slated to announce the terms of the partnership.

Microsoft and Nokia announced a deal in 2008 via which the pair would work on a port of Silverlight to Nokia mobile phones running the Symbian operating system. The year before, Microsoft and Nokia inked a deal to make Windows Live services available on select Nokia phones.

July 21st, 2009

Microsoft's fiscal 2010 game plan: Seven must-see slides

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:05 am

Categories: Channel, Corporate strategy, Database, Network service providers, OEMs, Office, Office 2010/Office 14, Resellers, SharePoint Server, System builders, Systems integrators, Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 /("Windows 7 Server"), Windows client, Windows server, Worldwide Partner Conference (WWPC)

Tags: Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows, Games, Microsoft Windows 7, Operating Systems, Software, Personal Technology, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft officials have been saying for the past month that the company’s fiscal 2010, which kicked off on July 1, will encompass its biggest product launch wave ever.

We already know Windows 7 goes on sale on October 22. But Microsoft hasn’t provided specifics as to whether it will hold another Vista-like consumer launch around that time. And beyond that — what else do the Softies have up their sleeves? What’s coming when?

At last week’s Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft did share a few more launch tidbits with the 6,000 or so developers, resellers, integrators and hardware partners attending.

I’ve culled some of the best slides from the various WPC slide decks that show off how Microsoft is advising its partners — who, for all intents and purposes, are Microsoft’s salesforce — to plan to go to market with their customers in the coming year.

Keep in mind that these slides are focused on Microsoft products that it sells primarily through partners: Windows, Office, SQL Server, Exchange, etc. You won’t find mentions of Bing or Zune here. But it’s also interesting there is no mention of Windows Mobile — even though Microsoft is trying to light a fire under partners to help sell its beleaguered mobile operating system.

From these slides, this is what I’d expect the business-focused launch calendar to look like:

• Windows 7/Windows Server 2008/Exchange 2010 rollout: November/December 2009
• SharePoint 2010: Early 2010
• Visual Studio 2010: Spring 2010
• Office 2010: May/June 2010

Check out my annotated slideshow of Microsoft’s FY10 game plan here.

I’m curious whether you see anything interesting in these slides that I missed… Comments welcome.

July 14th, 2009

Microsoft to allow Win Mobile 6.0, 6.1 users access to its online app store

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 9:05 am

Categories: Apple, Channel, Corporate strategy, Network service providers, OEMs, Windows Mobile, Worldwide Partner Conference (WWPC)

Tags: Phone, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Mobile, Microsoft Corp., App, Microsoft Windows, Mobile Operating Systems, Advertising & Promotion, Operating Systems, Mobile Applications

On the same day Apple celebrated the one-year anniversary of its iPhone app store, Microsoft announced it a few more tidbits about its own Windows Marketplace for Mobile store.

Microsoft used its Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans on July 14 to provide a few updates about its Windows Mobile plans.

The first Windows Mobile 6.5 phones are on track to begin shipping in early fall, said Todd Brix, Senior Director of Mobile Services with Microsoft. The Windows Marketplace for Mobile app store will  open simultaneously, Brix reiterated. And Microsoft will be kicking off an ad campaign for Windows Phones (the new way the company refers to Windows Mobile phones) that will be very consumer-focused.

As of July 27, Microsoft will begin testing and certifying third-party apps that will be featured in the Windows Marketplace for Mobile (codenamed Skymarket), Brix said.

And Microsoft is now publicly acknowledging that it will allow users of Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1 — not just Windows Mobile 6.5 — will be able to access the Windows Marketplace for Mobile. As a result, Microsoft will expand the market for those apps to 30 million potential customers, Brix said.

Brix said Microsoft is working with Windows Mobile phone makers and mobile operators as to how it will provide users with older Windows Mobile phones with this Marketplace access. In some cases, users will simply be able to go to the Marketplace Web site and download apps directly to their phones. In other cases, mobile operators and phone vendors might become the middlemen, providing Windows Mobile users with access to the store.

The Marketplace for Mobile store will include a separate business center area that will highlight the business apps available for Windows Mobile phones, Brix said. Those kinds of apps will include vertical apps for real estate, medical, legal and other markets, as well as more horizontal apps like Microsoft’s own Office Mobile and Communicator Mobile wares, he said.

Brix declined to provide any kind of update on what’s going on with Windows Mobile 7. I’m still hearing Microsoft will deliver the Mobile 7 code to its phone partners this fall, with the first Windows Mobile 7 phones arriving in the first half of 2010.

He also declined to comment on Skyline, the Windows Mobile push e-mail service Microsoft was working on for SMB customers. In fact, he wouldn’t acknowledge the codename at all. But if body language says anything, though, I’d say Skyline is DOA and we won’t see it come to market.

July 9th, 2009

Windows Mobile 6.5: How touchy will it be?

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 9:39 am

Categories: Apple, Channel, Corporate strategy, Google, Network service providers, OEMs, Windows Mobile, Worldwide Partner Conference (WWPC)

Tags: Microsoft Windows Mobile, Mobile, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows, Mobile Operating Systems, Operating Systems, Mobile Applications, Handhelds, Wireless And Mobility, Software

While I’ve heard a couple of folks refer to 6.5 as the “Windows ME” (Millennium Edition) of mobile OSes (ouch), Microsoft is continuing to beat the 6.5 drum in anticipation of the fall arrival of Windows Mobile 6.5 phones.

At next week’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) , Microsoft has a number of Windows Mobile 6.5 sessions on tap and is planning to show off some upcoming 6.5 phones during a keynote address on July 13, according to the WPC Web site.

Microsoft published this week new touch gesture documentation for Windows Mobile 6.5. Microsoft evangelist Marcus Perryman supplemented the docs with Part 1 of planned two-part blog post outlining Windows Mobile 6.5’s support for touch.

Perryman noted in his late June posting that Windows Mobile has supported touch since its first release. But 6.5 adds new gesture support, tailored primarily for phones with resistive screens that wasn’t available in previous Windows Mobile versions. From his post:

“Windows Mobile 6.5 has primarily been designed for resistive screens because some input areas still rely on small controls and require a high level of input accuracy that can’t be easily achieved with a finger and require a stylus; however some device manufacturers are considering options to ship capacitive screens.

“Looking forward the mobile team is considering how to address these issues and support many more screen types including capacitive.”

(Resistive screens are cheaper but better suited to interaction via a stylus than a finger. Capacitive screens are what Apple’s iPhone and the Android G1 use.)

There are five classes of gestures that will be supported in Windows Mobile 6.5, according to Perryman: select, double-select, hold, pan and scroll. In his post, he details how these gestures are supported at the programming-interface level.

Perryman doesn’t mention Windows Mobile 7, which a number of sources are saying will be released to manufacturing this fall and available on new phones in the first part of 2010. But that’s supposedly when Windows Mobile finally gets multi-touch and additional gesturing support.

There’s no earth-shattering news in Perryman’s post, but it’s worth a read if you are trying to keep up with Microsoft’s morphing mobile wares.

Meanwhile, speaking of what’s on Microsoft’s mobile plate, anyone know what happened to Skyline, Microsoft’s small-business-focused e-mail service that was being developed alongside SkyMarket (Windows Marketplace for Mobile) and Skybox (My Phone)?

July 8th, 2009

Microsoft updates more of its hosted services infrastructure

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 10:35 am

Categories: .Net Framework, Azure, Channel, Code names, Corporate strategy, Database, Exchange Server, Network service providers, Red Dog, SQL Server, SharePoint Server, Systems integrators, Utility/cloud computing, Virtualization, Worldwide Partner Conference (WWPC)

Tags: Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Update, Storage, Databases, Content Management, Microsoft Windows, Collaboration, Groupware, Enterprise Software

As Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) closes in, more elements of the company’s Azure cloud platform and hosted Online services are being sorted out.

As Ars Technica reported earlier this week, Microsoft has rolled out its July update to its Online Services family. (Microsoft Online encompasses the Microsoft-hosted versions of Exchange, SharePoint, Communications Server and other prodcuts. These services are not yet hosted on top of Microsoft’s Azure operating system; they run on Windows Server in various Microsoft datacenters.)

The July Online Services update includes a number of new features, including worldwide user provisioning, support for bigger SharePoint file uploads and more. Microsoft also is adding trials of these services for users in India, with commercial availability there slated for this fall.

Meanwhile on the Azure side of the house, Microsoft has changed yet again the name of its database component that’s built into the Azure Services Platform. Once known as SQL Server Data Services and then SQL Data Services, the newly renamed database piece is now “Microsoft SQL Azure Database.” Earlier this year, Microsoft went back to the drawing board with this component, announcing plans to make it more of a hosted version of SQL Server, rather than a clone of Amazon’s SimpleDB.

Microsoft also announced that the underlying storage component that is part of the Azure OS itself also has been rebranded as Microsoft SQL Azure. (I believe this is the technology formerly codenamed “Cosmos.”)

(Thanks to Windows-Now’s Robert McLaws for the pointer on the latest rebranding.)

Microsoft also is expected to talk up some of its plans around making its hosted services available to customers who want to run them on-premise in “private clouds” during next week’s partner show. Company officials also are likely to talk up some of the new test versions of the interoperability components of Azure there, as well.

Microsoft is on tap to outline Azure pricing and licensing, and to explain how its partners fit into its services picture at the New Orleans show next week.

Azure is expected to remove its “beta” tag by November during the company’s Professional Developers Conference.

July 6th, 2009

Azure pricing: How low will Microsoft go?

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 8:25 am

Categories: .Net Framework, Azure, Channel, Development tools, Google, Management tools, Network service providers, Red Dog, Systems integrators, Worldwide Partner Conference (WWPC)

Tags: Microsoft Azure, Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp., Pricing Strategy, Azure, Pricing, Marketing Research, Marketing, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft is planning to share details about its pricing and licensing plans for its Azure cloud environment at its Worldwide Partner Conference in mid-July. That’s what we know.

What we don’t know about its Azure pricing and licensing plans would fill a book. But there are a few hints and some educated speculation circulating regarding Microsoft’s expected directions here.

Azure is Microsoft’s cloud operating-system, programming environment and hosting platform which is currently in beta. Microsoft is expected to release the “final” version of Azure in November during its Professional Developers Conference. At its Worldwide Partner Conference, company officials are on tap to explain to its reseller partners and integrators “the Azure Service Platform Partner Model and Pricing” (as one show session on Tuesday July 14 is named).

Webcast replay: All About Azure

According to the WPC agenda, Microsoft is on tap to outline “the details of the Azure business model, pricing, SLA (service level agreement), and partner offers,” as well as the “roadmap to commercial launch” and how Microsoft plans to differentiate Azure from cloud/hosting platforms from its myriad competitors. (There also may be a business-specific “Business Edition” version of Azure in the wings, as .Net developer Chris Hayuk notes in a recent blog posting.)

Update: Microsoft also will unveil “the Cloud Computing Infrastructure Initiative’s Hosted Partner Network Program and outline further details on the Enterprise Dynamic Datacenter Toolkit (DDTK),” according to the partner conference site. The DDTK for Hosters already is shipping; a version of the DDTK for enterprises, slated to be available in the fourth quarter of 2009, is a key piece of Microsoft’s “private cloud” offering, and will help users deploy hosted server/service offerings.

It’s high time for Microsoft to get specific about what it’s planning to charge for Azure and how it plans to best Amazon, Google and others with cloud platforms already available to developers, said .Net and Web services expert Roger Jennings, who runs the Oakleaf Systems blog.

“Putting a price tag on Azure services at its Worldwide Partners Conference is crossing the Rubicon for Microsoft,” Jennings said. “Amazon Web Services has a three-year head start in outsourcing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and is reported to have 60,000 customers, most of whom are large organizations.”

“As a latecomer, Microsoft must offer substantially lower pricing for application/service instances, table/blob data storage, and data ingress/egress than Amazon or Google,” Jennings said. “He said he thought Microsoft should offer “a 50% discount from current pricing as a starting point for a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with two nines (99%) availability, 30% for three nines (99.9%).”

Matt Rosoff, an analyst wtih Directions on Microsoft, agreed that Amazon is the one Microsoft needs to undercut to grab and maintain mind share.

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