October 28, 2008 Microsoft see 'clouds' in future; Amazon does 'Windowshop' Play video

(NECN: Ted McEnroe) - A game-changer for Microsoft, and a cool way to shop from Amazon this morning on the web. Microsoft yesterday announced "Microsoft Azure", a new operating system designed to run "in the cloud", on thousands of servers they would operate outside your home or office. The company announced Azure yesterday, but the real impact won't be known for a while. But it is a major change for a company that made its name selling programs and operating systems you would load on to your own machines.

If you've never heard of cloud computing, you have been exposed to it - through Google. When you do a Google search, it's running on thousands of servers far away from you, and you get the results. Google has taken it a step further, with programs like Google Docs, which lets you do word processing and other tasks using software running on their servers.

But there's a more important question: Why should you care? Well, two reasons: 1) It could lead to even smaller and more efficient computers, since they won't need as much hardware power because the servers in the cloud do much of the work. And it means that items other than your PC - like that XBox hooked up to your TV, could suddenly become a lot more powerful.

But let's look at something you can use now. Amazon has opened a new site called "Windowshop", which lets users browse and listen to new releases through a cool 3-D interface. It's being used for new releases right now, in music, books, and (as