It was announced this morning that eBay will be one of the first customers of Microsoft’s new Windows Azure platform appliance for cloud computing. The announcement was made at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) taking place this week in Washington D.C.

According to the announcement, eBay will incorporate the Windows Azure platform appliance into two of its data centers. The goal being to further optimize its platform and achieve greater strategic agility and datacenter efficiency. The agreement comes on the heels of a a successful pilot deployment by eBay of Microsoft’s public Windows Azure platform – eBay’s page for iPad listings (http://ipad.ebay.com) is hosted on the public Windows Azure platform.

eBay VP of Technology, James Barrese, (@jamesbarrese) took the stage this morning at the WPC but I managed to catch up with him before eBay: On Location this past weekend and interviewed him about the news. We talked, among other things, about what cloud computing means for eBay and what it means for buyers and sellers in the online marketplace. Here you go…

Cheers!
RBH