Microsoft getting into the Cloud with Free Silverlight Streaming

A lot of people have been asking whether or not Microsoft is going to be getting into the cloud computing space. Well, it seems that they have with a new Live.com platform as a service offering called Silverlight Streaming.

Silverlight Streaming by Windows Live offers a free streaming and application hosting solution for delivering high-quality, cross-platform, cross-browser, media-enabled rich interactive applications (RIAs). With the ability to author content in Microsoft Expression Encoder and other third-party editing environments, Web designers maintain complete control of the user experience.

Some interesting features include;

• Free streaming and application hosting for up to 10 gigabytes (GB)
• Immediate high-performance, global-scale application delivery

I've never used Silverlight so I don't know if it's worth using or not, but with 10GB of space, it may be a nice location to save your files!

Check it out at: http://streaming.live.com/ and http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/overview/streaming.aspx
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David Crow was kind enough to send me some more MS Cloud Links;

* SQL Server Data Services - http://www.microsoft.com/sql/dataservices/default.mspx
** PhlufflyPhotos - http://dunnry.com/blog/PhluffyFotosSampleAvailable.aspx built on SSDS
* Live Mesh - http://mesh.com/
** See MaryJo Foley's review http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1355
* Live including Contacts, Virtual Earth, LiveID, etc. - http://dev.live.com/
* Mashups in Popfly - http://popfly.ms
* Dynamics CRM Online - http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/apr08/04-22DynamicsCRMOnlinePR.mspx

* Yet to be released RedDog - http://www.portal.itproportal.com/articles/2008/04/09/microsofts-red-dog-compete-google-apps-engine-and-amazons-ec2/ and http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=597