Microsoft TechEd in New Orleans continues today, but I’m back in the UK; unfortunately I was not able to stay for the whole event.

So aside from discovering that walking the streets of New Orleans in June is like taking a Turkish bath, what did I learn? The biggest takeaway for me is that Microsoft is now serious about cloud computing, at least on the server and tools side represented here. As I put it in my report for The Register, the body language has changed: instead of “we do cloud if you must”, Microsoft is now pushing hard to promote Windows Azure and BPOS – hosted Exchange, SharePoint and Live Meeting – while still emphasising that Windows continues to give you a choice of on-premise servers.

That does not mean Microsoft is winning in the cloud, of course. There is a question in my mind about whether Microsoft is merely exporting the complexity of on-premise to serve it over the Internet, rather than developing low-touch cloud systems. I think there is a bit of both. Windows InTune is an interesting case. This is a sort of cloud version of system center, for managing laptops and desktop PCs.On the one hand, I was impressed with its ease of use in the demos we saw. On the other hand, what does managing the intricacies of desktop PCs have to do with cloud computing? Not much, perhaps, except that it is a task that still needs to be done, and if the cloud can make it easier then I’m all in favour.

Although Microsoft was talking up the cloud at TechEd, many of the attendees I spoke to were less enthusiastic. One telling point: I spoke to a training company in the vast exhibition and asked what were the most popular courses. Among other things, he said he was doing a lot of Silverlight, a little WPF, and that there was little interest in Windows Azure.

I also attended an “expert panel” on cloud security, which proved an entertaining affair. The lively Laura Chappell said the whole thing was a nightmare, and none of the other experts dared to disagree. I chatted to her afterwards about some of the issues. Here is a sample:

One of the things is ediscovery. You have something on your computer that indicates someone is planning something against the president of the united states. With the Patriot Act, they can immediately go to that service provider, and they don’t care if it’s virtualised across 10 different systems, they are going to shut them down, and they do not care who else’s stuff is on there, the Patriot Act gives them the power to do that. You went out of business, so did 7 other companies, and they don’t have a timeline, with the patriot act, for them to bring their servers back up.

If anyone sceptical of the benefits of cloud went along, they would not have come away reassured.

Finally, there was a ton of good stuff announced at TechEd. I attended a press briefing the day before, with sessions on Server 2008 RS SP1, InTune, and other topics. The most interesting part of the day was a session which I am not allowed to talk about; but I will say mysteriously that Microsoft’s strategy for the product was not too far removed from one that I proposed on this blog, though I am sure there is no connection.

The other announcements were public. If you have not checked out the new Azure Tools, don’t hesitate; they are much improved. Unfortunately I hardly dare to use Azure, because although I have some free hours from MSDN I’m worried about leaving some app running by mistake and ending up with a big credit card bill. Microsoft needs to make Azure more friendly for developers experimenting.

Windows AppFabric is now released and pretty interesting, though it was not prominent at TechEd. Given that many business processes are essentially workflows, and that this in combination with Visual Studio 2010 makes building and deploying a workflow app much easier, I am surprised it does not get more attention.