The recent problems experienced by the Windows Azure cloud-computing preview might have seemed like a case of Microsoft joining the party. Outages and other glitches have been relatively common in the industry as Amazon, Microsoft and others have opened up their data centers for smaller companies and developers to use for storage, computing and delivering online applications.

But those kinds of problems shouldn’t be an inevitable part of cloud computing, says Doug Hauger, Windows Azure general manager. In a phone interview last week, Hauger reiterated Microsoft’s explanation of the problem, which was triggered by an operating-system upgrade that caused "networking issues" and server failures. However, he said, cloud-computing customers should expect more.

"This is a community technology preview, so in that sense, I think we’re learning," he said. "But it is my expectation that, if you’re an enterprise business and you’re betting on a cloud-computing platform, that bet you make should not include the need to expect an outage."

In technical terms, Hauger said he doesn’t consider what happened to Azure to be an "outage," in that the data center didn’t go completely dark. Storage remained available, and the problem didn’t affect most applications that used Microsoft’s recommended architecture, which essentially provided a natural backup. Microsoft called it a "malfunction."

But whatever you call it, "clearly, it was not good," Hauger said. "I’m not saying that it didn’t happen, nor am I saying that it wasn’t a bad thing. It was not good. And we learned a lot from it."

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and Seattle startup exec named to head RNC’s new media push  

Former radio talk show host Todd Herman, who worked at Microsoft and MSNBC.com and founded Seattle startups such as theDial and SpinSpotter, has landed a new gig as director of new media for the Republican National Committee. 

Herman writes about the new job in his blog.  I have a call into the tech executive to see what his plans entail and what this mean for SpinSpotter, the Seattle startup he launched six months ago with former RealNetworks executive John Atcheson. SpinSpotter’s goal is to expose media bias, corporate/political spin an other inaccuracies in online reports. 

Atcheson — the liberal of the top two SpinSpotter executives — remains in the CEO post.  Herman is listed as a founder and chief creative officer of SpinSpotter, which is backed by angel investors and Epic Ventures.

In 2001, Loudeye acquired certain assets of theDial, the online radio startup that Herman founded. At Microsoft, Herman worked on MSN Video.

[Via TechCrunch]

READ MORE and COMMENT, more and Clearwire mobile service; Marsalis on iLike; PopCap; etc.  Kirkland’s Clearwire has begun testing voice-over-Internet phones in Portland, with plans to add the mobile service next year, reports Multichannel News.

An observant TechFlash reader the other day noticed moving trucks outside Cray’s long-time Pioneer Square headquarters, prompting speculation that the supercomputer maker might be leaving the city. Not at all, says public relations director Nick Davis. The company is just moving a few blocks away, taking three floors at 901 5th Avenue in downtown Seattle. Cray — which employs 141 in Seattle and 840 people worldwide — has about the same amount of square footage in the new building (54,000) as it did in Pioneer Square. The company decided to move because its lease was finished, Davis said.

Jazz legend Wynton Marsalis has released his new album — He and She — exclusively on the Seattle online music site iLike for the first 24 hours. It will debut in retail stores tomorrow. Marsalis said he chose iLike because it allowed him to more directly interact with his fans.

PopCap Games today introduced a new $4.99 iPhone application for the game Bookworm, a word game that allows users to shake the phone in order to scramble letter tiles.

Pharmaceutical giant Merck Serono has set up a $55 million venture fund to bankroll new biotech ventures.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos was among the new names that made it onto Barron’s list of most respected CEOs this year.

The Financial Times reports on Amazon.com’s launch of a new ecommerce site in Japan devoted to shoes and accessories. The new site, Javari, is similar to Amazon’s Endless.com business in the U.S., and is part of a "a broader international expansion" by Amazon, the report notes.

San Francisco-based Industry Ventures, the secondary VC fund that recently bought the holdings of Washington Mutual’s venture portfolio, including stakes in Madrona, Arch Venture Partners and Maveron, has raised a $265 million fund, according to TheDeal.com

Headline of the day comes from Brad Feld: "A VC’s Biggest Flaw: Arrogance."

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Windows Vista picking up steam as demand rises for 64-bit PCs  

For all the fancy graphics and big security improvements that Microsoft touted to sell Windows Vista, a lesser-noticed enhancement may be fueling sales of the beleaguered operating system as it gets ready to fade into the sunset.

Demand for computers with souped-up, 64-bit processors is nudging more PC buyers to go with Windows Vista these days, despite its negative reputation and continued demand for Windows XP, writes Jon Bach, president of Puget Systems, in a post on the company’s site that details the XP vs. Vista sales trends experienced by the custom PC builder.

"There is a 64-bit version of Windows XP, but driver support is so poor that it is rarely a feasible option," Bach explains. Driver support for 64-bit versions of Windows Vista is much better, he notes, adding that it’s "funny to think that the availability of 64-bit drivers is quite possibly the largest factor ‘forcing’ people to adopt Windows Vista."

The trends may be more magnified at Puget Systems than in the broader market. The company sells high-end machines on which 64-bit processors make more sense. However, many of the company’s customers also stuck with Windows XP long after Vista came out.

Bach, a past TechFlash guest commentator writes that his company updated many of its preconfigured systems to Windows Vista 64-bit over the weekend "in direct response to a dramatic increase in popularity of 64-bit over the last few months."

Computers with 64-bit processors can see improved performance over 32-bit systems, particularly with data-intensive applications, because they can address far more system memory, reducing the need to go all the way to the hard drive to retrieve data. 

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