Earlier this morning Ray Ozzie announced Windows Azure which is a new offering Microsoft has in the works. If you didn't already know Azure is a color. Specifically a blue color that is used as part of the Windows Azure logo. Unfortunately I didn't get a snapshot, but I am sure you will be able to find one easily enough.
At it's essence Windows Azure is a way for Microsoft to offer the their products as services. For example, if you have need for SQL Server and SharePoint but you don't want to worry about infrastructure just buy a subscription to Windows Azure and you have what you need. Microsoft will run the data center and you can scale up with some configuration settings. Obviously there are more details, but that is the just of it. Pricing will be a big question mark, although Ray said they would be competitive. I will be grabbing the SDK for that to see what I can learn.
One interesting tool that was demonstrated that leverages some of the Windows Azure services is Bluehoo. Bluehoo is a new social networking tool that attempts to connect you with people that are in the immediate vicinity of you. It is intended to be run on your phone or laptop. They demonstrated the Silverlight application during the keynote which portrays you as a "hoo", a little creature that is blue or gray depending on your status. It was pretty neat, I am sure it will get a ton of activity over this week. So I just visited the m.bluehoo.com site to see if they supported BlackBerry, fully expecting to be left out in the cold. To my amazement BlackBerry was available so I installed it on my phone. Unfortunately I was greeted with an exception stating that is had a verification error. I am guessing this may be my older BlackBerry's fault, but not sure. At the very least, I suggest you check it out to see if it is something you are interested in.
