Microsoft moves into the cloud

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has told a group of the company’s executives that the future of computing will be web-based services, or cloud computing.

“Cloud computing represents the next frontier,” Ballmer said at the gathering. “We’ve been betting or investing in the cloud for about 10 years and in earnest for about six or seven years.”

Ballmer said the company views cloud computing as playing a role between the integration of personal computers, smartphones and other types of devices, including televisions.

“Those are intelligent devices that are going to continue to morph,” he said, adding that cloud computing will “fuse the best of what we think of as the phone, the PC, the TV, the internet and the corporate data-centre”.