Microsoft’s Windows Azure Coming in January

By Dena Cassella November 18, 2009

In October of 2008, Microsoft first unveiled its new Azure cloud-based application. The application was offered to developers for free to allow them to test out the service and get ready for the full introduction of the platform. Microsoft also held a contest earlier this year with $5,000 in prizes for several categories to get developers to build applications for Azure.

Microsoft had always said that Azure would be free for a limited time. Reuters reports that Microsoft has now announced that Azure will officially launch in full form on January 1, 2010. For the first month, the service will be free. Starting in February 2010 the service will move to a paid platform.

At its core Azure is a software platform for developers to use to write programs that allow customers to store data and more. Google and Amazon are already offering online services that use cloud architecture. Google has its free online word processing and productivity applications and Amazon has the aforementioned cloud-based storage it sells.

Exactly how much the service will cost on a monthly basis is unknown. Microsoft’s Ray Ozzie announced the official launch date for the service at the annual Microsoft software developers conference Tuesday.

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Best Microsoft Office deals: Get Word, PowerPoint, and Excel for free

Students using Microsoft Office software on their laptops outside.

Even though Google Docs and Google Sheets are free, Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365 remain the golden standard in the fight between Microsoft vs Google on the most widely used office software. Unfortunately, this market dominance means that both Microsoft Office and 365 can still be quite expensive, and even though you can certainly get a free trial of Microsoft Word, if you want the full version and the rest of the suite, you'll need to pay. Luckily, there are quite a few good deals you can take advantage of that don't require you to spend the high prices that you would if you bought directly from Microsoft. To that end, we've gone around and collected the best deals we could find below.
Best Microsoft Office deals
Microsoft Office is a pay once, receive once service. You don't have to pay recurring monthly fees to use it, but the software also never updates. For what it's worth, the Microsoft Office packages are labelled "2021", so they're all fairly recent but also ripe for a good deal. With the exception of AI integrations, not much has really changed in the past couple of years when it comes to your basic document creation and these programs should continue to be effective for years to come. Depending on what package you get, you'll get access to different apps, based on the needs of the target audience. For example, Microsoft Office Home & Student 2021 keeps it lean and cool and with Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint being the only apps included.

Here are our favorite deals for the classic Microsoft Office experience:

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Ends tonight: Get 42% off a year subscription to Microsoft 365

Office 365 Apps on an orange background.

For a complete set of productivity apps that will be familiar to most people, you may want to take advantage of this offer from HP -- a 42% discount on a one-year subscription to Microsoft 365 Personal, which brings its price down to just $40 from its original price of $70. That's $30 in savings on software and services that will be helpful to both professionals and students. You're going to have to hurry in completing the transaction if you're interested though, as there's not much time left before the bargain gets taken down.

Why you should buy Microsoft 365 Personal
Microsoft 365, formerly known as Office 365, is a subscription service that gives you access to all of the brand's most popular productivity apps, among other things. If you sign up for Microsoft 365 Personal, not only will you be able to use Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft OneNote, but you'll also get 1TB of cloud storage where you can save your files and access them from anywhere, as well as protection from Microsoft Defender. Any software updates will be done automatically, so you won't have to keep checking if there are any newer versions yourself.

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How to uninstall Windows 11 and rollback to Windows 10

A man sits, using a laptop running the Windows 11 operating system.

Change is a constant in the world of technology, and operating systems are no exception. Windows 11, with its sleek interface and improved features, may have tempted you into upgrading to Windows 11. Yet, as with any change, there can be a multitude of reasons why you might want to revert to your previous OS or explore alternative options. In this guide, we'll explain how to uninstall Windows 11.

Whether you're facing compatibility issues, prefer the familiarity of an earlier Windows version, or simply feel that what was once the best desktop you've ever had has become the worst, we've got you covered.