Microsoft today opened a S$23 million technology centre in Singapore to enable companies to test out new technologies such as cloud computing and unified communications before rolling them out at their own premises.

The first in Southeast Asia, the centre joins another 26 worldwide in showcasing and concept-proofing the software giant’s new offerings to corporate customers.  …

Public clouds just don’t cut it when it comes to mission critical applications that form the backbone of your business. Security concerns, especially when you’re dealing with sensitive customer data like building security drawings, could also put a damper on any cloud computing strategy.

You could try to build a “private cloud“, though the term could be misleading, depending on your definition of cloud computing.

In May, Amazon Web Services senior vice president Andy Jassy noted that private clouds usually incur “very high fixed cost and lack the benefits of the cloud. Companies still own all the capital expenditure, data centers, servers; it’s not pay as you go and it’s not truly elastic on the company level because you still own and manage the infrastructure by yourself.” …