The new release also benefits from Microsoft's work building out its own Azure cloud service, he explained. Many technologies developed for the server were tested in the cloud, and many technologies developed for Azure were then imported back to the server.

"Historically, there has been a separation between people who developed applications and the people who operated in the data center," he said. "We tried to keep a tight feedback [loop] between the two, to share the technology."

The IDG News Service