H/w vendors are only cut out if MSFT invents a replacement for metal. Granted, utility computing in the cloud is about squeezing more utilization and value out

H/w vendors are only cut out if MSFT invents a replacement for metal. Granted, utility computing in the cloud is about squeezing more utilization and value out of a given piece of h/w, so it's not without impact. You might perceive this as a change, but I'd say it's a change in the paradigm moreso than a change in MSFT. Also, people tend to overlook this but cloud isn't really about infrastructure or hosting. Sure those are the current analogs--cloud is about what happens next, and I think it's more about shifting architectural tenets so that we do what works well with cloud scale and lifecycle. When you do those things, other interesting things start to become possible (e.g., in the cloud, it's hard to have misaligned test and prod envs, not the rule like it is most everywhere else).