While it’s not surprising that Google and Microsoft are preparing to clash in other fields besides search and advertising, the two companies’ attitudes toward the cloud and the different approaches were dissected at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo here.

At its most basic, cloud computing offers customers the ability to have their applications supported by third-party vendors and those applications are then delivered to the user through the Internet. Enterprises, such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft, can also develop their own cloud computing infrastructures for their internal applications.

While the cloud is still a somewhat undefined area, the types of technology that Google and Microsoft are developing could shift the way businesses, and even consumers, use the cloud for their needs. Part of this clash for the future of the cloud comes from the different business models that Google and Microsoft developed. While Microsoft has worked mainly in the enterprise and built its reputation on its operating systems and offerings such as the Office suite, Google has been more consumer focused and has relied on advertising revenue to bolster its search capabilities.

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