Although some folks are chatting about Software Plus Service (S+S), few have heard it mentioned around the water cooler yet. It is a subject, however, that will grab the buzz before much longer. Central to the Google-Microsoft wars, S+S pertains to the upcoming cloud computing phenomenon, as well.
On the one hand, Google’s approach to cloud computing is to put all software and services in the cloud, which is then merely retrieved by a dumb client via browser (think Google Docs, Google Apps). Microsoft, on the other hand, has a hybrid approach to the all-or-nothing scenario in that it retains computing power and software on the device itself, with data rumbling around in the cloud. The Microsoft approach is to seamlessly balance the roles of both to fit any given job at hand. Hence, the Software Plus Service (S+S) name as opposed to Software as a Service (SaaS), where software resides in the cloud.
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