The Windows platform with all of his branches like Azure or Windows Server is still the main business of Microsoft and will be protected. There are two interesting News appearing in connection with Windows Azure (and in the broadest sense with windows platform) which are fitting with the strategy (or in this case with the nice advertisement 
) of Microsoft: “into the cloud”.
Windows Azure Inbound Traffic for free
Every kind of upload on Windows Azure is free from the 1sth of July (that’s what the Windows Azure Team Blog says). Even if the traffic generates the lowest costs is the main idea a good one: the real benefit of the files will usually come with the “consume” of the files. With that the gateway hurdle will be kept down.
Node.js on Windows Server and Windows Azure
Another interesting announcement is the support of Node.js. Node.js is basically an application server which is used to run JavaScript on the server. Sounds crazy on the first sight and Javascript has its folds especially on the server side but JavaScript has its advantages because of his “asynchrone” nature. If you want to read more about this stuff enter Node.js on Google and co.
But in fact Windows was tended only halfhearted by Node.js so far. But now an official statement was released, that Microsoft will help the node.js Team to make it fit for Windows.
What does this mean for ASP.NET developer?
The full facts are yet to be established. In my opinion this is only the fulfillment of the promise that Windows (doesn’t matter if Azure or the “normal” installation) offers the greatest and best choice of developer platforms – Node.js, PHP, Java ore .NET – at least it is important that it works in Windows.
Anyway it would be interesting if working with .NET Stack will be better with Node.js 
Gossip
Of course this blogpost belongs to “gossip” because we need to wait for the implementation after Node.js adumbration. Anyway it’s a welcome act of Microsoft and also the Upload for free will decrease a part of the costs.