Microsoft Corporation, internationally renowned multinational computer technology corporation, has made the annunciation that it is on the verge of be releasing its cloud based computing system Azure on January 1, next year. It has also come to the knowledge that the company plans to make the most of the mounting interest in internet-based software and services.

What is Azure then? As per officials of Microsoft, the first and foremost job of Azure is to render an online platform for software developers in order to create their own programs, and space for customers to store data. The service was rolled out for experimentation a year ago. It is to be noted that the declaration was made by Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect, Ray Ozzie in the company’s annual software developers conference.

All these make us believe that Microsoft is likely to be a big player in the cloud computing market - largely the trend toward operating software in remote datacenters and accessing it over the Internet. It is also true that Microsoft Corporation has lagged behind pioneers like Amazon.com, which already sells cloud-based storage, and Google, which offers a range of free, online software. The first month of the service will be free, as per Ozzie, billing will start in February.

Microsoft Corporation happens to be a multinational computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices. Headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA, its most money-spinning products are the Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software.

The company had its inception in 1975 in order to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. Microsoft rose to dominate the home computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by the Windows line of operating systems. Many of its products have achieved near-ubiquity in the desktop computer market.

Apart from this, Microsoft owns footings in other markets, with assets such as the MSNBC cable television network, the MSN Internet portal, and the Microsoft Encarta multimedia encyclopedia.