4 Things CIOs Need to Know About Microsoft's Reorg

Microsoft is playing for more than enterprises and knows that PCs aren't where the money is anymore. For the CIO, this means a Microsoft that's not as laser-focused on business tools as it has been throughout its existence, with some exceptions, but is attempting to reach consumers, gamers, executives, artists and so on.

4. The Cloud Won't Be a Bad Place to Live

News flash: Microsoft desperately wants you to subscribe to the cloud. It really wants your mail and collaboration in Office 365Office 365, it wants your Web services hosted on Windows Azure, it wants your sales force using hosted Microsoft Dynamics, and it wants your spam filtering done by Exchange Online Protection. It wants to hook you in, send you an invoice every month, and seal you into the Microsoft ecosystem-and for the trouble, you'll receive upgrades, support and (hopefully) always-on service. Alles zu Office 365 auf CIO.de

News: Ballmer Outlines the Road Ahead for Microsoft Office, Skype, 'Bing Now'More: Microsoft TechEd Focuses IT Pros on the 'Cloud OS'

You know what For some businesses, this is exactly where to be. This message is compelling for resource-challenged small to medium-sized businesses to play at a scale that Microsoft can offer for pennies per hour. The majority of small businesses have no reason to run an in-house email server. The majority of medium-sized businesses can't roll out a Web application on a scale and in the timeframe by themselves that they could by spinning up some Windows Azure instances.