Interest

Microsoft Launches Cloud Girl Manga for Windows Azure

Microsoft Japan launched the first of four chapters from Cloud Girl - Mado to Kumo to Aoi Sora- (Cloud Girl: Windows, Clouds, and Azure Skies), an "epic manga" that explains and promotes Microsoft's Windows Azure cloud services system. The Microsoft Developer Network already posted a preview of the manga, in which the cloud services are personified by the character "Claudia." The manga includes a cameo by Nanami Madobe, the formerly unofficial blue-haired mascot character who was created to promote the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system.

In the story, the novice engineer Claudia visits the personal computer parts shop where her cousin Nanami works part-time. Trouble ensues when the shop launches a promotional campaign on Twitter, and the shop's retail site goes down due to the overwhelming hits. It is up to Claudia to make things right again. Along the way, Claudia pitches Windows Azure as a hassle-free way to avoid deadling with issues like security patches, uprading and swapping parts, and manually backing up data.

In cloud services, applications, data, and other resources are hosted on the network instead of stored on each computer. Microsoft claims that Windows Azure will help developers and administrators by getting rid of the exhaustive, redundant work that goes into hardware maintenance, patches, and the latest operating system upgrades for multiple computers.

[Via Temple Knights]

Image © 2011 Microsoft