It's easy to question the speed with which Microsoft has embraced the internet age - and many in the past have. But today that's no longer true (though the competition wishes it was)!

They're a significant player in almost every aspect of the evolution of the web as a platform, a service and a commodity and with announcements of technologies like Silverlight and beta Live services their stamp on the space is only going to continue to grow.

The opening of the new server farm in Quincy WA should firmly remind people that Microsoft are pretty serious about the cloud and their place in it. They've got the focus, the determination and the funding to build on a pretty fantastic scale.

I hope though that they think about following in the footsteps of Yahoo! and Google and going green with their power supply...