Microsoft boxing up its Azure cloud

Until now, customers wanting to write programs for Windows Azure have had to run them from inside a Microsoft data center, such as the Chicago facility seen here. (Credit: Microsoft) Microsoft is announcing on Monday that it plans to let businesses and partners run Windows Azure in their own data centers by purchasing a new server appliance. The software company had previously hinted that customers might someday be able to host their own instances of the cloud-based operating system, but had yet to commit to that option

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