[mootpointer]

I'd wager that Azure is targeting a very different part of the market. There were some really handy things in Azure, and there's some really handy things about Digital Ocean. In the end, Azure is not chasing people who only want to pay $5/mo for a server.

I've had a few issues with Azure myself, but that never caused me to question the pricetag.

Will not treating DO as a serious threat come back to bite them? Quite possibly. Are they worried about it right now? Seems not.

[nemothekid]

Azure doesn't seem to be at all competitive with Amazon either. Azure A1 (1 "Core", ~2GB RAM)'s 1.5x more expensive than Amazon's similar offering. Is that difference due to Windows licensing?

[msie]

With Azure you get two servers backing up each server, I think.