Microsoft’s cloud computing division has scored a significant victory. Three of them, even, as this morning, the company was able to announce that Dow Chemical, Hyatt Hotels, and the University of Georgia will use Microsoft cloud computing solutions.
A Dow VP indicated in an official statement that Microsoft’s experience and expertise contributed to his corporation’s decision. That’s arguably a bit of a snub to Google, which is making every effort to catch up to and overtake Microsoft in this field.
Meanwhile, the CIO of Hyatt Hotels complimented Microsoft’s flexibility. Also, if anyone’s counting, Hyatt said this development will affect around 40,000 deskbound employees, plus perhaps another 17,000 workers who don’t have full-time access to a computer.
Finally, the CIO of the University of Georgia said, "With Live@edu, we believe we will have a best-in-class communications and collaboration infrastructure . . ." And for the record, something like 85,000 University of Georgia faculty, students, and staff should be using of that.
Again, then, Microsoft has scored some big wins, and Google – with the delay in L.A. representing its most recent cloud-related headline – seems to have lost this round.
Microsoft’s stock is down 0.06 percent at the moment, a little behind the Dow (which is up 0.07 percent), but ahead of the Nasdaq (which is down 0.28 percent).