There is more news than I thought on the subject on Microsoft moving Windows Azure from Washington state to Texas. There are fifteen articles on the subject, and here are a few.
Cloud Computing: Washington vs. Washington
BusinessWeek - Om Malik - 4 minutes ago
When I spoke with US CIO Vivek Kundra last month, he outlined a pragmatic approach to federal technology that involved adopting a hybrid model ...
Will Google regret the mega data center?
Register - Aug 7, 2009
In the wake of Microsoft's decision to remove its Windows Azure infrastructure from the state of Washington - where a change in local tax law has upped the ...
Microsoft's Drag-And-Drop Windows Azure Cloud
InformationWeek - John Foley - Aug 7, 2009
Citing an unfavorable change in tax laws, Microsoft is moving its Windows Azure cloud from a data center in Washington state to one in Texas. ...
Curious what Om Malik would say in BusinessWeek. He brings up Washington D.C. is excited about the cloud, but Washington state is going to build a mega data center in the state capital of Olympia instead of Eastern Washington.
Cloud Computing: Washington vs. Washington
The feds want cloud computing services as part of their tech infrastructure, but Washington State plans to build its own data center
By Om Malik
When I spoke with U.S. CIO Vivek Kundra last month, he outlined a pragmatic approach to federal technology that involved adopting a hybrid model of data centers and cloud computing solutions. Buying infrastructure as a service instead of banking solely on energy-guzzling data centers is a good way to stretch tax dollars, he argued. Kundra's colleague, Aneesh Chopra, Chief Technology Officer of the U.S., shares his approach.
And while cloud computing is all the rage in Washington, D.C., it seems Washington State doesn't much care for cloud computing. Instead of buying cloud computing services from homegrown cloud computing giant Amazon.com (AMZN) (or newly emergent cloud player, Microsoft), the state has opted to build a brand-new, $180 million data center, despite reservations from some state representatives.
Microsoft (MSFT) is moving the data center that houses its Azure cloud services to San Antonio, from Quincy, Wash.—mostly because of unfavorable tax policies. The data centers are no longer covered by sales tax rebates—a costly proposition for Microsoft, which plans to spend many millions on new hardware for the Azure-focused data center.
It figures as industry experts question the mega data center, state gov’ts pick up on the mega data center to use tax payers money.