Microsoft is predicting that millions of e-mail accounts will move to the cloud over the next five years. In an interview with Reuters, Chris Capossela, who manages Microsoft’s Office products, said the company will see more and more companies abandon their own in-house computer systems and shift to “cloud computing,” a less expensive alternative.
This shift to cloud computing will change the revenue model at some divisions of Microsoft. Currently, customers pay Microsoft a licensing fee for the software, then buy their own computer and hire their own technology staff to manage those systems. In a services business, the customer pays Microsoft a larger fee, since Microsoft also runs and maintains all the hardware.
Microsoft said it continues to build up its infrastructure, adding roughly 10,000 powerful computer servers a month to its data centers, about the equivalent of what Facebook uses, according to Capossela.
