Microsoft to add Java support to Azure

I caught this post over at Mary-Jo Foley’s “All about Microsoft” blog. This doesn't surprise me. In fact, it would surprise me more if they decided they wouldn’t support Java in Azure. They already support a bunch of other non-.NET languages so why not Java? Might there be identity data that needs to be accessed from Java? Might their be identities to authenticate or authorize from Java? The real interesting part for me is if they start supporting Java in Azure will they do that in other areas, too? Like federation, for example. Microsoft needs to be as open as they can be and this is one small step in that direction but there’s a lot of other steps still to be taken.

This Microsoft has been touting for a while the ability for developers to use a variety of tools, like Java, PHP, Ruby and Eclipse, when developing applications for Windows Azure. But the company is going to step up its Java support for Azure in the coming weeks and months, elevating Java to a “first-class citizen” in the Microsoft cloud realm.
The reasons Microsoft is interested in doing this aren’t hard to figure. There are lots of Java developers out there whom Microsoft would be excluding from its potential cloud customer base if it didn’t support anything beyond .Net. And Microsoft cloud competitors like VMware, Amazon and Google all have built Java support into their respective platforms.

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