前两天顺着Virtual Earth/Live Maps->Data Centre Knowledge->Money CNN的顺序摸到了两年前的这篇文章《Microsoft's new brain》：

"Brutal competition. A stock going nowhere. Microsoft is in crisis, so Bill Gates has unleashed his new hire, software genius Ray Ozzie, to remake the company - and conquer the Web."

By David Kirkpatrick, FORTUNE senior editor

April 18, 2006: 5:42 PM EDT

文章相对较长，记录了微软高层在2005年6月于Robinswood就已决策“转向Web”，并任命Ray Ozzie负责这项庞大计划前后的事，主要是以讲述Ozzie的故事为主。Ozzie是Lotus Notes的创造者，他在2005年进入微软，2006年6月15日接替Bill Gates成为微软的首席软件架构师。上图中精神矍铄的白发老者就是Ozzie，旁边那个长得像扬克尔他爸的就是Ballmer。Ozzie的任务很明确，就是“Webify everything”。按照Ozzie的想法，“Everything we do should have a presence on the Web”。那次会议由Ballmer主持，Bill Gates没有出席。

从那之后，微软推出了Windows Live，以及不断的基于Windows Live在做着所有他们能想到的东西。微软称这个平台为他们的“云”：

"Whereas PC software draws mainly on resources on your hard drive, this new software will rely heavily on the 'cloud', as they call the Net at Microsoft. The company is planning a suite of applications that run on this new hybrid platform, just as Office and other software run on Windows PCs."

所以说，微软启动“云计算”的时间虽然并不早，但其实也不太晚。