[dangrossman]

> For a startup to choose to build on Azure they'll need staff with MSFT stack experience

Why's that? Azure's just another cloud hosting provider. You don't have to run any kind of Microsoft software on the servers.

[morganvachon]

Exactly, and Microsoft is happy to host your own custom Linux-based environment if you want complete control over your stack:

http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virt...

edit: looks like phonon below beat me to it by a few minutes.