 <p>My company is using Amazon EC2 now and I am down at the PDC watching the details on Azure unfold. I have not seen anything yet that would convince us to move away from Amazon. Azure definitely looks compelling, but the fact is I can now utilize Windows and SQL server on Amazon with SLAs in place. Ray Ozzie made it clear that Azure will be changing A LOT based on feedback from the developer community. However, Azure has a lot of potential and we'll be watching it closely.</p> <p>Also, Amazon will be adding load balancing, autoscaling and dashboard features in upcoming updates to the service (see this link: <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/contact-us/new-features-for-amazon-ec2/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://aws.amazon.com/contact-us/new-features-for-amazon-ec2/</a>). Never underestimate Amazon as they have a good headstart on Cloud Computing and a big user base helping refine their offerings already. Never underestimate Microsoft either as they have a massive developer community and global reach.</p> <p>Overall I do not think the cloud services of one company are mutually exclusive from one another. The great thing is that we can leverage all of them if we want to.</p> <p>Microsoft should offer up the ability to host Linux based servers in their cloud. That would really turn the world upside down!</p>