Windows Azure Passes PaaS, Moves Directly Down to IaaS
Azure is moving down the stack. Originally a Platform as a Service (PaaS) tool which is more or less a full stack to run your apps, just one level below Software as a Service (SaaS). Most companies move up to higher levels of sophistication. With Azure, Microsoft is moving down, broadening the service into Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). IaaS are the basic building blocks, servers and virtual machines upon which you place things. This means you really have to build everything from scratch to run on the thing.
For those that feel I'm talking down to you, I apologize, but all these categories are pretty new and these terms aren't always used with great precision.
Now Azure has IaaS and PaaS. And Office 365 is Microsoft's answer to Software as a Service. The story is starting to get pretty complete.
Posted by Doug Barney on 06/21/2012 at 12:47 PM