Justin goes over his experience at the Microsoft Build conference this year:
With things like C#, the Roslyn compiler/frameworks, and the modern WinRT
runtime, it feels like Microsoft is way ahead of Apple in the future looking regard. As a developer, I’m jealous of a lot of the technologies coming out of Microsoft. As a user? They’ve got a long ways to go before I consider using Windows over a Mac. That said, this is the new Microsoft. They don’t need me to use Windows or Windows Phone as long as I use Microsoft services like Azure, Office 365 and the like.
After following what both he and Brent Simmons have been doing with Azure, I'm more than a little curious to tinker with it. I've only recently tried something higher level than AWS, I was a heroku virgin. So, I don't feel I'm biased. The price wars, as well as a number of arguments for/against VPS vs higher level have had this on my kind lately. Mobile Services as a first class citizen on Azure is interesting. AWS is trying with their push service, but it feels like an afterthought at the moment.