Microsoft's Vince Menzione (pictured), General Manager for Microsoft's partner strategy in the US public sector, has been underlining his company's "end-to-end commitment to cloud computing."

In a magazine interview this week Menzione declared: "All of our salespeople will be leading with cloud....Cloud is the way we lead our discussions with our customers."

Menzione, whose full title is General Manager of USPS Partner Organization and Strategy, is responsible for partner engagement within the U.S. Public Sector. He deals with businesses in the Federal, State and Local Governments, Healthcare and Education. Before joining Microsoft, Menzione Vice President of Government Sales at General Dynamics Itronix Corporation.

His sentiments echo Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer's, speech in April to computer science students at the University of Washington. He discussed what’s ahead for computing, with a focus on how cloud computing will change the way people and businesses use technology.

"Twenty million businesses and over a billion people use Microsoft cloud services," Ballmer noted.

One of his slides in Seattle was headed:

"The cloud fuels Microsoft, and Microsoft fuels the cloud"

The most telling quote came towards the very end of Ballmer's address. "This is the time," he said. "It's the opportunity and the cloud forms the basis between the microprocessor and the Internet, we did give the gifts that never stopped giving. And they're giving us the cloud today, and as I like to say at Microsoft, for the cloud we're all in."

Right after giving his speech, Ballmer sent an internal email to all Microsoft employees, the full text of which is worth reading even now, two months later, since it gives chapter and verse on why Microsoft believes cloud computing to be one of the biggest opportunities in decades for the tech industry and for Microsoft. Here it is:

To: All Microsoft employees
From: Steve Ballmer

Today, I spoke to a group of students and faculty at the University of Washington to discuss how cloud computing will change the way people and businesses use technology.

My goal was to challenge people to look at the cloud more broadly and understand the multidimensional nature of the cloud transformation happening today. Other companies have defined the cloud in a narrow, one-dimensional way. Although these companies provide some interesting components, Microsoft is uniquely delivering on a wide range of cloud capabilities that bring increasingly more value to our customers.

In my speech, I outlined the five dimensions that define the way people use and realize value in the cloud:

* The cloud creates opportunities and responsibilities
* The cloud learns and helps you learn, decide and take action
* The cloud enhances your social and professional interactions
* The cloud wants smarter devices
* The cloud drives server advances that drive the cloud

This view fuels our investments across the entire company, from datacenters to cloud platform technologies to cloud-based development tools and applications. Today, nearly every one of our products has, or is developing, features or services that support the cloud. As I said today, when it comes to the cloud, we are all in. We are all in across every product line we have and across every dimension of the cloud.

Of course, this is not news to any of you. We have been making huge investments in the cloud for the past decade. Nearly five years ago, Ray's "Services Disruption" memo provided the outline for what we needed to do as a company, and with the delivery of Windows Azure at the recent PDC, we have made huge strides in making this vision real.

To keep our momentum, it is critical that every Microsoft employee works to deliver the full benefits of the cloud to our customers.

As a part of this, I request that you do the following:

* Watch the speech on demand here
* Learn more about our cloud offerings and how they relate to our overarching software plus services strategy here (unavailable outside Microsoft network)
* Review your commitments to ensure you are landing our vision with customers and partners.

Of course, there is more work to do. We have strong competitors. We need to be (and are) willing to change our business models to take advantage of the cloud. We must move at "cloud speed," especially in our consumer offerings. And we need to be crystal clear about the value we provide to all our customers.

To drive our message home even further, today you will see an ad campaign in the U.S. focused on our commercial and government businesses, a new website with consolidated content and case studies, and ongoing emphasis on the cloud from me and other members of the SLT in our upcoming speeches and presentations.

We have an enormous opportunity in front of us. We have great products and services in the market today and a range of new ones on their way.

All of our products make the cloud better, and the cloud makes our products better.

Thanks,
Steve