back to article Meet Microsoft's latest Windows Server reseller – come on down, Google

Google is going to serve up Microsoft Windows in virtual machines on its Compute Engine service as the web giant hopes to dethrone Amazon as the king of the cloud. Support for the operating system was announced by Google on Tuesday at its Cloud Platform event in San Francisco: the search king will make Windows Server 2008 R2 …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Google competes with Microsoft Android?

    "Though Google and Microsoft compete with each other on search (Google v Bing) and the cloud (Cloud Platform v Azure) and phones (Android v Windows Phone)"

    Bing competes with Google, I don't think so. Microsoft Android v Windows Phone, I thought Microsoft owned Android?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Google competes with Microsoft Android?

      "Bing competes effectively with Google, I don't think so."

      FTFY - of course it competes with Google on search, but that's not the same as doing it well.

      "Microsoft Android v Windows Phone, I thought Microsoft owned Android?"

      Care to elaborate on that really very strange comment?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No matter what OSs Google support on their cloud platform they are still likely to remain irrelevant minnows in this market compared to Azure and S3.

    Microsoft own lots of patents used in Android - and they get a nice revenue stream from licensing them to Android manufacturers (as do Nokia), but they don't own it!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yes, Microsoft's compelling "patent" claims, where they neither specify exactly which patents they think are being infringed and have never been tested in court. All you need to do is sign here pay us $5 release a few windows phones that people don't want and we'll leave you alone. Sounds more like a protection racket to me.

    1. dogged

      If were simply a protection racket, Samsung would reject the licensing agreement. They don't mind getting into lawsuits and they have more money than God.

      My bet is - the patents are applicable and Google probably advise resellers not to fight the license claim. Face it, if any major reseller lost that battle, Android would be in serious trouble.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Why would Microsoft want to show their hand before they have to? It's obviously a very strong claim or multiple multi billion dollar companies wouldnt have rolled over and paid up.

      1. fandom

        It is such a strong hand that when Microsoft sued Barnes & Noble, they ended up giving B&N 300 millions dollars to stop their counter attack.

        Come on, I know you are just trolling, but really, can't you do any better?

        1. dogged

          > It is such a strong hand that when Microsoft sued Barnes & Noble, they ended up giving B&N 300 millions dollars to stop their counter attack.

          You picked an appropriate handle, didn't you?

          B&N decided to fight the lawsuit in order to keep Nook unit prices down and angle for wealthy partner to subsidize their failing dead-tree+bricks+mortar business. Sadly, it was going nowhere and (given the toppling of Android dominoes) was likely to fail. This gave MS a chance to make a grab for the ebook market for cheap, which fortunately also failed. I wouldn't put it past them to have gone for Apple-style cartel pricing and the fact that they were beaten to it should make everyone happy, especially B&N who got exactly what they wanted.

          Give it up, fandroid. Are MS bastards? Yes. Are the patents legit? Yes. Why does that hurt you personally? Because you can't see that Google are just as bastardy as MS but you really should. Open your eyes. None of them are on your side.

          1. fandom

            It doesn't hurt me personally at all, but I have to say that it amuses me that after MS failed to get B&N to pay for their patent racket some people still think that those patents are strong.

            By the way, have you read what you wrote? I doubt it, so I will quote it:

            "B&N decided to fight the lawsuit in order to keep Nook unit prices down and angle for wealthy partner to subsidize their failing dead-tree+bricks+mortar business."

            Well, I thought that the AC was funny, but he can't touch you.

            So your point is that B&N was failing, so they decided to spend millions fighting a lawsuit they knew they were going to lose, since the patents are that strong, when the alternative was sending a few dollars per device to MS.

            And MS seeing that the were going to win decided that, they were not going to make an example of B&N, in fact they felt so sorry for them that they sent 300 millions dollars to B&N.

            And in exchange B&N say they will make a Windows Nook, but they don't and MS say: "Nah, it's just 300 million no reason to make them comply with the agreement"

            As "grabs for the ebook market" go, this sounds kind of half-hearted, doesn't it?

            And no, none of them are on my side, what has that got to do with laughing at silly ACs?

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          No, Microsoft got offered to buy a large chunk of B&N for cheap to go away - with the agreement that the patent infringing devices would go away too...

          1. fandom

            Oh! I get it now, they made the deal in abril 2012 to stop making the Nook, that's why they still have them for sale.

            Really, I don't know why people complain about patent trolls, they can offer me hundreds of millions to stop using their patents anytime they want.

  4. midcapwarrior

    2008 R2?

    Maybe google should do a search and find out the latest version is 2012 and that 2008 has less than a year of support left.

    1. TheVogon

      Re: 2008 R2?

      It is Windows Server 2003 that has only slightly over a year of support left. And the latest version is 2012 R2.

      1. midcapwarrior

        Re: 2008 R2?

        Server 2008 End of mainstream support 1/13/2015

        http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=12925

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This announcement was leaked in error

    It was due to be announced next Tuesday

  6. Keith Langmead

    2008 r2?!?

    Why would anyone want a new box running 2008?!? It sucks, it's the vista of the server world! Only reason for using 2008 rtm is if you need 32-bit windows but since that's not an option in r2 I don't see why you wouldn't want 2012 which is a far better os imho. Perhaps avoid 2012 r2 if you're scared of being up to date, but personally I think it's the best windows server os yet.

    1. TheVogon

      Re: 2008 r2?!?

      More to the point, why would anyone want to host anything with The Borg ?

    2. chris lively

      Re: 2008 r2?!?

      having migrated a few apps to work under 2012 I would say that '08 r2 is likely to stay around for quite a few years. Especially if we are talking about app servers. Some of the choices MS made with the latest IIS are... quixotic to say the least.

    3. IGnatius T Foobar

      Re: 2008 r2?!?

      Have you *tried* Server 2012? It's the Windows 8 of the server world, optimized for touch just like Windows 8 is. Because server operators everywhere want touch screens, or something...

      I suppose if you insist on running legacy applications like Exchange or Sharepoint you'd want a Windows server, but for most cloud-based applications, Linux is a *far* better fit.

  7. The Godfather
    Childcatcher

    Food for thought..

    Come into the parlour says the spider (Google) to the fly (Microsoft)......I'll eat you up one day soon.

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