<p>Given the number of items Microsoft announced last year across the Windows OS, Windows Server (including Exchange), and Visual Studio product lines, I expected this year's TechEd conference to be fairly boring. It's true that the announcements this week at Microsoft's annual customer conference aren't rocking the industry, but there are treasures to be found in the nuances.</p><p>For example, in one session on Exchange 2013, Microsoft announced that the next cumulative update (CU2) coming this quarter for the Enterprise edition will allow for 100 mounted databases per server. That's a welcome enhancement from Exchange 2012's current limit of 50, essentially reversing the reduction from Exchange 2010's limit of 100. Microsoft also says Exchange 2012 CU2 may let you use Azure as your witness server in a cross-site database availability group. Neither feature will knock everyone's socks off, but they'll make admins' lives easier.</p><p>[ Paul Krill reports: Microsoft rushes out early-bird release of Visual Studio 2013. | Stay atop key Microsoft technologies in our Technology: Microsoft newsletter. ]</p><p>Microsoft's continued shift of IT to the cloudOf broader import were Microsoft's announcement of the upcoming releases of hybrid cloud versions of several servers: Windows Server 2012 R2, System Center 2012 R2, Windows Intune, and SQL Server 2014. They're key steps into realizing Microsoft's "cloud OS" vision that extends the data center -- and ultimately moves much of it -- into the public cloud.</p><p><a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/microsoft-windows/teched-2013s-sleeper-hits-windows-azure-windows-81-and-exchange-220039">Keep reading...</a></p>