Nick Carr writes about a possible major strategic statement from Microsoft, one that would address an expansive and detailed strategy for moving its software business into the cloud. While this is only a rumor, I do not consider Nick to push anything he wouldn’t consider important or substantial, so there are some teeth here. Also, it’s been a while since Ray Ozzie came on board, and we’ve all been waiting for something like this. Like it or not (and I certainly don’t), Microsoft is the centerpiece of enterprise operations and any move which changes the behavior of CIOs the world over is not to be taken lightly. Personally, I am all for any such move. Perhaps those who look at the web as not being ready for corporate business will be forced to move in that direction.

I quote Carr again

The new strategy will, I’m told, lay out a roadmap of moves across three major areas: the transformation of the company’s portfolio of enterprise applications to a web-services model, the launch of web versions of its major PC applications, and the continued expansion of its data center network. I expect that all these announcements will reflect Microsoft’s focus on what it calls “software plus services” - the tying of web apps to traditional installed apps - but they nevertheless promise to mark the start of a new era for the company that has dominated the PC age.

Of course, for this to work, Microsoft’s web offerings shouldn’t simply be online versions of desktop software, nor should they be watered down. They should take advantage of the platform that the web provides.

It will be interesting to see what happens. Thus far, the Beast from Redmond has pretty much whiffed on the web.

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