Microsoft Server and Tools Executive Talks “Cloud”

Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s new Server and Tools President, spoke for the first time today at the GigaOM Structure conference since he took on this new role. Nadella, who replaced Bob Muglia, a Microsoft veteran who is stepping down, declared that the industry is moving toward “the post-virtualization era.”

Nadella who previously said he is committed to putting the cloud at the center of everything that Server and Tools does moving forward, spoke at a hosted Q&A session at GigaOm’s Structure conference.

When asked what programs companies feel comfortable migrating to the cloud, Nadella said “there are things like a stateless website they’re very happy to put on the cloud today, but if you take their core billing system, is that something they want to take to public cloud? Probably not. They probably want to take to the private cloud.”

And concerning security? Nadella said companies have similar concerns about attackers penetrating their private network. “It’s really about the soft core vs. the hard shell, which is wherever you are. I think security will remain a big topic for the industry at large but it’s not just primarily a cloud issue. It’s an issue for anyone today who has any kind of network.”

Nadella says Microsoft’s new cloud products may displace sales of traditional software but will bring more revenue for the company “It’s just going to increase consumption. The limiter is the current architecture approach,” he said. “Today we have tens of thousands of customers who are playing with Azure,” he said. “There’s a lot more (people) testing and developing.”

Nadella did not mention the outage that hit this morning Microsoft’s cloud email service BPOS (Business Productivity Online Services ) and lasted several hours.