Microsoft has made available the release candidate version of System Center 2012, a software package used to manage cloud services. The move underlines Microsoft's intention of making itself a player in the cloud environment.

More broadly, amid all the hype about consumer-centric mobile devices, the Redmond giant is not abandoning business computing. For IT professionals at small and midsize businesses (SMBs), as well as other business users, MS will continue as a prominent part of their environment.

"Hybrid Approach"

As reported by Nancy Gohring at InfoWorld, an early access program has over 100,000 virtual machines already using the software.

System Center 2012 combines eight formerly separate products, and responds to a previous customer complaint about complicated licensing. Brad Anderson of Microsoft's Management and Security Division acknowledges that licensing issues had produced frustration that was best addressed by combining products and providing only two versions.

The release candidate version stands on two legs, providing management support for private clouds as well as tools for managing software running in the public cloud. The InfoWorld piece notes that what it describes as a hybrid approach--running applications in the public cloud while maintaining the associated data in a private cloud--is growing in popularity.

As a release candidate, System Center 2012 is in the final stage of beta development. If no serious bugs are reported by users, the full rollout will make the product generally available.

Following the Weather

Microsoft's offering responds to the most widely expressed concern about cloud computing by configuring it to handle both public and private clouds. Highly publicized cloud security breaches have left many SMBs uncomfortable about entrusting their sensitive data to the public cloud. Regulatory compliance rules can be a factor for other firms.

Thus the rise of the "hybrid approach," hosting applications in the public cloud while keeping sensitive data in a private cloud where firms can maintain closer control. The cloud is turning out to be a more complex "weather pattern" than it seemed to be a year or two ago. And vendors, MS among them, are responding with offerings that are intended to provide a broader range of options to users.

More broadly the move reaffirms Microsoft's intention of keeping its focus on business users. The company made its mark in the first place, back in the days of MS/DOS, by supporting "personal computing" in a distinctly business-centric way.

A growing emphasis on cloud support shows that the Redmond giant intends to maintain this focus, offering products suited to IT users at SMBs.