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xRM: Microsoft’s other platform-as-a-service play

Time: 14:29 EST/19:29 GMT | News Source: | Posted By: Kenneth van Surksum

The amorphous term “cloud computing” includes lots of different service-delivery models — everything from managed services, to utility computing, to software-as-a-service (SaaS), as Infoworld outlined in a useful cloud-computing primer this week. And within these cloud subcategories, definitions are vague, too.

Consider platform-as-a-service (PaaS). Some are defining Google’s just-unveiled Google App Engine as a prime example of PaaS. But they also are lumping Salesforce.com’s Force.com platform into this category, as well.

Microsoft is readying a hosted application platform, according to my sources, that sounds a lot like Google’s App Engine. BizTalk Services and SQL Server Data Services are allegedly among the components of this still-to-be-announced Microsoft-hosted service, which will be aimed at developers who want to use Microsoft’s development/deployment/hosting platform as a launch pad.