Windows 7 Home Premium Microsoft starts rolling ou

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At this 12 months;s Expert Developers Conference, the Azure group promised to provide a slew of new add-ons and services — in either test or final form — before the end of calendar 2010. As of this week, test versions of many of those companies are available for download.The majority of the promised companies and add-ons are available via the new Azure Management Portal; a few others are available via a newly released Azure Tools for Visual Studio software development kit (version 1.3), which Microsoft made available for download earlier this week.There are still a few providers that Microsoft officials said would be available before the end of this yr that are not downloadable yet. Those include server application virtualization (due in Community Technology Preview, or CTP, test form), SQL Azure Reporting (due in CTP form),Office Home And Business 2010, and SQL Azure Data Sync (also due in CTP form). These are still on track for end of year,Office 2010 Sale, the Softies said on November 30.As of this week,Office 2010 Standard, public betas are now available for: Windows Azure Virtual Machine RoleExtra Small Windows Azure Instance, which is priced at $0.05 per compute hour, to attract developers who need cheaper cloud training and prototyping environmentThe application section of the Windows Azure Marketplace, a site offering Azure building-block components, premium data sets,Windows 7 Home Premium, training and services A CTP is now available for: Windows Azure Connect: (formerly Project Sydney),Office 2007 Activation Key, which provides IP-based network connectivity between on-premises and Windows Azure resources Microsoft is providing an overview Webcast about these new features on December 1 at 9 a.m. PT.By the way, if you;re wondering whether “CTP” and “beta” mean the same thing in the cloud as they do on-premises, Microsoft;s answer is “not exactly.” Server and Tools President Bob Muglia told me at the PDC that Microsoft is moving towards a slightly different nomenclature when talking about the path to rollout in the cloud. “Preview” in the cloud refers to code that Microsoft is showing but not providing to testers outside the company. “CTP” refers to code testers can use, but that will be provided for free. “Beta” refers to code available to testers, for which Microsoft plans to charge, Muglia said.