The folks over at The Register are reporting that Apple’s iCloud service is powered by Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s AWS servers for hosting. Apple reportedly wants to focus on building the consumer side experience of iCloud instead of becoming a full-time cloud storage service provider. After the unsuccessful launch of MobileMe, Apple outsourcing it’s server-side duties o those that are more experienced and trusted in the server/cloud sphere provides a blanket of technical security as well as PR security. If someone screws up, Apple doesn’t have to take all the blame. It is a bit shocking that Apple is relying on two if its larger competitors to ensure the brand new and highly anticipated cloud-based service launches without issues. Microsoft appears to be ignoring the irony and is excited with Apple’s use of Azure, reportedly calling the deal a “validation of Azure,” and “a great opportunity to get Azure under a very visible workload.” Whatever Amazon and Microsoft may think, securing a customer such as Apple translates to a large long-term revenue stream. As long as the service lives up to Apple’s standards of perfection that is. Apple is currently set to debut its iCloud service this fall and will utilize three data centers initially, as well as spreading customer information across the three companies’ servers. As of right now, sources believe Apple will be running “the full Azure service – the Windows Azure computer and controller part and SQL Azure storage with hosts tables, queues and flat files.” This presents its own potential problems as Apple may have to utilize custom made software to retrieve and send files across multiple platforms. The bottom line is that Apple must avoid a MobileMe level of embarrassment at launch and by the looks of it, they have already gone to great lengths to do so by swallowing their pride. Authors: