By now, you’ve probably all heard about Microsoft’s plans to drag us all kicking and screaming into cloud computing. Every aspect of our digital lives is moving ever closer to their massive array of super-computers and amorphous online storage. We exchange email using web-based accounts, store our cherished photos online, share our favorite websites on other websites, and soon we’ll even have online versions of popular productivity tools like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Online application services and storage are nothing new, but with the advent of Windows Live, Windows Mobile, and Windows Azure platforms, the software giant finally has all of the pieces in place to revolutionize the way we share and communicate.

The infrastructure is there, now all they need is a better brand to tie it all together. And according to industry experts and company insiders, that new brand is Microsoft “Sky.”

The first leg of the framework is already live. You’ve probably heard of (and maybe even use) SkyDrive. It’s an online file storage platform that provides 25 GB of storage to anyone with a free Live ID. Other cutting-edge sync technologies, including Live Mesh and Live Sync, are expected to fold into SkyDrive platform within the next few months.

Next comes SkyMarket, SkyLine, and SkyBox. These revolutionary services are designed to bring your mobile device into the cloud by offering an online application store, online storage for businesses, and online storage for consumers, respectively. If you need a new app for your phone, you’ll be able to get it instantly from Microsoft. And instead of relying on your mobile carrier or a media card to back up your phone’s data, it’ll just live in the cloud.

The last component of their unified vision is to move all of our critical computing and security tasks to the cloud. Of course, this will be the most challenging feat for the often-maligned software company. Security hasn’t always been Microsoft’s strong suit (you need to look no further than the current Conficker worm crisis). But according to top executives within the organization, the weakness is due to the “human factor” that is inherent in the current security process.

“Despite our best efforts, average users just don’t install security updates as they should, exposing their critical computing devices to untold hordes of hackers, viruses, worms, and malware,” said Microsoft Chief Security Officer Council chairman, Richard Astley. “We’re planning to change all that in a big way.”

This radical new security paradigm, developed in conjunction with California-based security firm Cyberdyne Systems, actually allows Microsoft’s cloud computing architecture to tap into the vast resources of the Internet, including the US Department of Defense, and take control of our devices to better automate the process of finding and eliminating security threats instantly.

Microsoft’s name for this revolutionary new service? SkyNet.

What could possibly go wrong?

- Greg

PS: Happy April Fool’s Day, everyone.