Microsoft offers services, tools to developers

During his speech this week at the Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that the company is opening up a bit. "What's ours is yours," he said. Microsoft pledged to share more information with partners and developers. Ballmer said that later this year, Microsoft will deliver the first version of a set of tools for developers to build on top of Microsoft's Windows Live platform and noted that the tools will be based on the .NET architecture. He also said that the company is in the process "of building out a services platform." Doing so, however, will take time. It will require Microsoft to have a new computational model, a new storage model, a new virtualization model and more, Ballmer said. He also discussed the company's plans to transition from a traditional software company to a company offering software plus services. "For software plus services, the time is now," Ballmer said. Over the next year, Microsoft will continue to sell mostly on-premises software, but there will be more evidence of the transition to its hybrid model later this year. 

For more on Microsoft's proposed foray into services:
- See this CNET article
- and this article in CIO Magazine

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