Microsoft, as a company, is making a switch from being a software company to being a service and devices company. About 5 years ago, each software license Microsoft sold in the enterprise space was used on hardware bought or leased by the customer. With the shift to the cloud, this is changing—along with the features of the Microsoft software.

Microsoft announced it will deliver new features first in cloud and only later in on-premises software. This also means that on-premises software has features to easily connect to Microsoft Azure. For example, an export of SQL Server database can easily be imported into Azure Storage with a few mouse clicks without leaving the SQL Server Management console. Visual Studio has a similar cloud integration.

We have to see how this works out. Currently, software offered in the SaaS model, such as SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and part of Office 365, are restricted in available features compared to their on-premises versions. For example...