Microsoft recently announced the development of their cloud-based platform, Azure, which makes me ask the question: “When will all of our computing tasks be shifted over to the cloud?”

Microsoft faces stiff competition in the “race to the clouds,” mainly from Google.  Google has been a true pioneer with Google Docs, a completely free online application suite.

In order to keep up with cloud computing, Microsoft has announced that their flagship Office Suite will now be offered as a browser-based software package on the Azure platform.  Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and OneNote will now be accessible through the Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari browsers.  No word yet on the pricing model.

The race to the clouds is a huge next step for the software industry.  We will see a huge push for cloud-based computing in the next year or two.  It all depends on who strikes first and offers the right infrastructure.