It sounds as though Microsoft is gearing up to announce a major update to its private cloud strategy during a webcast to be held Jan, 17, 2012, at 11:30 a.m. Eastern. Nominally, the webcast is designed to present Microsoft partners and customers with their “cloud options.”

But President of Microsoft’s Server and Tools Division Satya Nadella and Corporate Vice President of Management and Security Brad Anderson will be on hand to ensure that attendees are the first with the good word about its new cloud plans.

Mary Jo Foley at All About Microsoft expects Nadella and Anderson will announce an update on System Center 2012, potentially releasing to manufacturing all twelve components of the product line after failing to meet a self-imposed late 2011 deadline. Remote support tool Microsoft Intune, System Center’s public cloud cousin, hit general availability in the latter half of 2011, so if Microsoft is promising a private cloud update, it would definitely stand to reason that System Center could get some time in the spotlight.

Microsoft spent plenty of scratch promoting the Windows Azure, Office 365 and Windows Intune public cloud solutions to partners in 2011. Maybe 2012 will see Redmond place a similar emphasis on private cloud solutions for cloud service providers.

Needless to say, TalkinCloud will be back with an update when Microsoft breaks its news.