OStatic

Microsoft has announced pricing for the components of its Azure cloud computing platform, as GigaOm reports, and you can watch a video about Azure here. As expected, consumption-based computing costs are slightly lower than Amazon's costs, but, as The Register reports, Amazon's Linux-based service undercuts Microsoft's Windows pricing.

Microsoft will charge $0.12 per compute hour for its Windows Azure Compute offering, while Amazon's price for a Windows-based compute hour is $0.125. However, Amazon's Linux-based offering is $0.10 per computing hour, and it also charges slightly less for storage than Microsoft. There are many analyses going on around the web about how these pricing strategies will play out over time, but I think the differences in pricing are actually very incremental, and the most interesting cloud computing players to watch are pursuing flexible open source strategies.?

In response to my post Does Chrome OS Have a Fighting Chance?, where I discussed various things that will and won't work in Google's favor as it delivers an open source operating system targeted at netbooks, a reader, in the comments, served up this pithy but thought-provoking conclusion: It stands little chance unless Google finds a way to natively run familiar Windows apps. ?

In my post, I pointed out that users won't just adopt cloud-based applications in droves, abandoning desktop applications, and I said, application usage doesn't shift entirely overnight. Still, the reader comment focuses specifically on Windows applications, and is one of many thoughts appearing online concerning Google's precise stance toward Microsoft. What is that exact stance?

One thing that both Google and Apple share is that almost the instant that they announce a new product, the public loves it. That's partly because they tend to deliver winning products, but they don't always do so. Google has shuttered a number of projects from its labs, and its productivity applications are popular, but haven't come close to toppling Microsoft Office. And remember the Apple Newton? I barely do either.

For these reasons, and because an operating system is a complex thing to build and gather support for, it makes sense to scrutinize Google's actual chances of delivering a hit with it's newly announced Chrome OS. Here are some things that will work in Google's favor, and some that will not.

PC makers to support Chrome OS. Google plans to announce within the next day or so the names of PC makers in Taiwan and China that have already signed on to work with its new Chrome operating system.

Chrome OS to emphasize security. Google claims that it will be completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS, reports ArsTechnica, including process isolation.

Codeplex the measure of Microsoft open source street cred. The company is trumpeting the success of its three year old CodePlex open source site, noting it now has over 10,000 projects.

Stop piling on Mono. Microsoft says it won't go after developers using the C# programming language and infrastructure used in the Mono implementation of .NET. So why are people ripping on Mono?

SUSE 11 takes off faster than 10. Novell delivered its SUSE Linux 11 release at the end of March, so it's now time to ask how it's doing. The answer: better than SUSE Linux 10.

Microsoft beating Mozilla...in open-source licensing. Adoption of its open source Microsoft Public License (MS-PL) is more prevalent than you think.

First look: Opera Unite alpha lets you share files -- but is it safe? The browser offers people their own web server, but what are the security risks?

EnterpriseDB brings Postgres closer to Oracle. It's more compatible and more scalable.

Red Hat's virtualization plan enters next phase. The company is aiming to challenge VMware and Citrix.

Microsoft beating Mozilla...in open-source licensing. Adoption of its open source Microsoft Public License (MS-PL) is more prevalent than you think.

First look: Opera Unite alpha lets you share files -- but is it safe? The browser offers people their own web server, but what are the security risks?

EnterpriseDB brings Postgres closer to Oracle. It's more compatible and more scalable.

Red Hat's virtualization plan enters next phase. The company is aiming to challenge VMware and Citrix.

Black Duck, a company that services managed and secure implementations of open source software, announced a collaborative agreement with Microsoft that automates the process of adding open source projects from Microsoft's CodePlex repository into Black Duck's KnowledgeBase. CodePlex projects will also be searchable via the Koders.com open source search engine.

The partnership is significant because CodePlex houses 9,000 projects -- mainly for Windows and .NET developement -- with more than 100 new projects added every week. Since CodePlex accepts any technology projects, however, those with open source elements will now be accessible to developers in the FOSS community.

Secret EU open source migration study leaked. A hush-hush study from the EU Council has made it into the wild.

8 cool tricks to make the most of Google Chrome. Coax it to use less memory and become a wizard with tabs.

Microsoft debuts open source PHP for Azure, IE8. The company has a new Software Developer Kit (SDK) for PHP on Microsoft's cloud services platform Windows Azure.

Can the enterprise open source strategy work? In associating with Red Hat, Ingres grabs a lifeline into the larger enterprise customer space.

aTunes is an unsung cross-platform audio player and manager. It makes it easy to organize music, rip audio CDs, and more.