Apple's iCloud Runs On Microsoft Azure 230
Front page first-timer ge7 writes "Apple's recently announced cloud storage and cloud service platform, iCloud, runs on their main competitor Microsoft's Azure platform and Amazon services. According to The Reg's sources, 'Microsoft insiders see the iCloud deal as a validation of Azure. iCloud puts Azure into a different league, given the brand love for Apple and the Apple management's fanatical attitude to perfection. It is a "huge consumer brand, a great opportunity to get Azure under a very visible workload." ... Apple has had a recent unpleasant experience in providing online services: in a famous memo, Steve Jobs admitted his company had "more to learn about internet services" following the outages and failures of his precursor to iCloud for email, contacts, calendar, photos and other files on MobileMe.'"
Re:I don't know. (Score:5, Informative)
This story is apparently based off of observations made in june [datacenterknowledge.com], when iCloud was first announced, and seems to concern just iMessage [infiniteapple.net] not the entirety of iCloud services. iCloud isn't even out yet, it's still in beta (real beta, not "Google beta".) As always without any kind of official confirmation or strong observable evidence this is just a rumor, but that won't stop everyone from reporting it as fact.
Re:MS isn't a competitor. Frenemies 4evar! (Score:3, Informative)
"Lest you forget, MS kept Apple alive with a huge cash infusion when they were about to go under."
No, Apple was not about to go under. The $150 million was a token gesture of solidarity and it purchased non-voting shares. Apple had BILLIONS of dollars in the bank at the time. Apple was rudderless, which is what led to Jobs returning and reforging the sword that was broken, but Apple didn't need Microsoft's cash--they needed Office to be supported.
Re:MS isn't a competitor. Frenemies 4evar! (Score:0, Informative)
MS kept Apple alive with a huge cash infusion when they were about to go under
No, MS made a token investment of $150M, and promised to keep shipping Office on the Mac for five years, in exchange for Apple not pressing charges for their theft of the Quicktime source code. Gates and Ballmer both would have done time for that, they were caught red-handed.
Re:I don't know. (Score:4, Informative)
Pretty much every statement in your post is completely made up whole cloth. The purpose of the data center has never been stated, whether it's ready has never been stated, MobileMe having "miserable failed" is far from true, and that they "completely stripped down their server OS" is both incorrect and wholly unrelated (Apple uses Sun and Oracle, among others, for their Internet servers).
And finally, that they are using MS and Amazon is completely, 100%, pure rumor based on a supposedly anonymous tip to a disreputable "news" organization.
It's not that this is impossible, far from it. But it's that it's simply a rumor from a single source, and a claim that would certainly need a bit more substantiation to believe.