This is a big week for Microsoft when it comes to the cloud. First, the company debuted Office 2010, which made a move towards the browser with cloud-based versions of Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Today, Microsoft is announcing the business model and launch timing for Azure, the company’s much hyped cloud operating system. The platform also includes a Web-based relational database in Microsoft SQL Azure, and connectivity and interoperability with .NET Services.
Microsoft says that Azure will be offered for purchase through a consumption-based pricing model and will try to continue to offer promotional discounts to enterprise customers. Pricing for Azure’s OS is $0.12 cents an hour for computing and $0.15 cents per Gigabyte per month for storage. SQL Azure will offer a basic $9.99 per month plan and a $99.99 business edition, which has a database capacity of up to ten gigabytes.
