New windows cloud operating system

As far as I can tell, the primary objective of 'cloud' software is that in order to use it, consumers log onto a web server and 'pay as they use' such software.
It may well provide a sensible charging sytem for the use of software, ensure 'always up-to-date' software', but on the other hand, any consumer has to pay for his/her useage ( like a rental) and also has to pay for bandwidth for uploads and downloads (if they want local copy) from their ISP!
I do not favour this offering!!!

That's not the primary objective, it's parallelism.

For example, it's currently very easy to make applications that run on one server, but if the traffic grows it's not possible to scale vertically and you need to be able to scale laterally. Scaling an application laterally is a significant challenge to developers without frameworks in place to make it easier.

You already use things "in the cloud" on a daily basis, things like Google, your web mail provider, etc. This doesn't mean you'll have to pay for them, and in fact the main difference so far has been that previous programs you used to buy to use personally are now free with ad-supported models.

The "cloud" is just networked computers working together, and not a business model.