Microsoft renames Azure services, updates privacy policy

It looks like Microsoft is renaming Windows Azure, too, after killing off Windows Live as part of its re-branding strategy. The company isn't clear on whether or not they'll be retaining the Azure branding though, or if this is just a simple change to billing. It appears to be the latter, however, to simplify the way that customers are billed to avoid using the services' names multiple times in one statement.

The information came in an email sent to customers of the service today, and you can read the full text at the end of this article.

The company also updated their privacy policy with some interesting changes too, which we'll look into and report back on if there are any major changes, however it appears to be to protect themselves in regards to the Patriot Act. The changes to the names of the service will not come into effect until a few weeks time, although Microsoft didn't specify when.

We should note that it appears this is for the billing system only at this point, we will wait for Microsoft to clarify this point. 

Full email text:

Dear Customer, 

In the coming weeks, we will update the Windows Azure Service names that appear in the usage records you download. These are only name changes – your prices for Windows Azure are not impacted. The table below summarizes the changes: 

Prior Service Name	New Service Name
Windows Azure Compute	Cloud Services
Windows Azure Platform - All Services	All Services
Windows Azure CDN	CDN
Windows Azure Storage	Storage
Windows Azure Traffic Manager	Traffic Manager
Windows Azure Virtual Network	Virtual Network
AppFabric Cache	Cache
AppFabric Service Bus	Service Bus
AppFabric Access Control	Access Control
SQL Azure	SQL Database
SQL Azure Reporting Service	SQL Reporting