To make up for a string of outages that were caused by a software bug in its Azure cloud services Microsoft is granting affected customers a 33% credit for the time they were left stranded during the Feb. 29 failure.

This is a story about Davids and Goliaths. The Davids are Australian ISVs who have big ambitions and the nerve and ability to take on the Goliaths – the big name IT companies around the world. ARN finds out why and how.

Software giant, Microsoft, has commercially launched its Windows Intune cloud service, specifically catering for the SMB space.

Systems intelligence software developer, East River Software, is on the hunt for partners.

When Microsoft all but demands its partners ‘cloud up,’ and Japanese telecommunications provider, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Group (NTT Group), makes a $US3.2 billion acquisition on the premise of developing its cloud capabilities, it is obvious that there is an incredible buzz about the cloud. But is it realistic? And what about the lingering concerns that Australia is not quite ready to live up to the hyperbole?

ARN's Matthew Sainsbury is in Washington, courtesy of Microsoft, for the company's World Partner Conference 2010. His reports plus those for IDG's American staff and slideshows are all part of this ARN special coverage of the conference.

Infor on Monday will announce plans for applications running on Microsoft's Azure cloud platform, deepening the vendors' already close partnership and adding momentum to the industry's shift away from on-premises ERP (enterprise resource planning) software.

On Monday, during the kickoff of Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference being held this week in Washington D.C., Microsoft announced that it would be releasing a version of its Windows Azure cloud computing platform that can be run as part of an appliance offering.

Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie has officially filled the shoes previously worn by founder and Chairman Bill Gates, stepping in as leader of the company's vast developer network, which is its lifeblood and crucial to the enormous success of Windows. Ozzie delivered Monday's keynote speech at the company's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles, introducing Windows Azure, a cloud-computing development and hosting environment that integrates Ozzie's vision for the future of the Web, which he began building at his company Groove Networks before he joined Microsoft.