Cloudy skies ahead

Visiting Microsoft’s glass-walled office — overlooking Beirut to one side and a panoramic Mediterranean to the other — one can easily forget the enormous challenges looming on the company’s horizon. “It’s the nicest Microsoft office anywhere,” boasts Hany Morcos, the company’s public sector cloud technologies director for the MENA region. But reality jolts quickly back into focus. Morcos, along with Cairo-based corporate affairs manager Ashraf AbdelWahab and Lebanon country manager Hoda Younan, are hoping to sell the Middle East on cloud technology, a key component of Microsoft’s latest corporate strategy.  And of course, they’re hoping the world will buy that technology from Microsoft. Later in the day that we meet, the three are due to run a workshop on these technologies for Lebanese public sector officials. Their vision is a much more efficient and secure government — and a company-saving strategy for Microsoft. Sky-high futures The cloud — shorthand for