Microsoft doesn't want to admit it, but a Gartner analyst says the vendor's decision to offer Windows Server instances in the Azure cloud is opening a new competitive front against partner hosting companies.
Before 2010 is over, Microsoft will update Windows Azure with the ability to run Windows Server 2008 R2 instances in the Microsoft cloud service. The move could blur the lines between platform-as-a-service (PaaS) clouds like Azure, which provide abstracted tools to application developers, and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) clouds such as Amazon's EC2, which provide raw access to compute and storage capacity.
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