Hi,
great to hear that Microsoft will spend more work in enhancing the .NET MF.
I also like that you guys are working on further improvements for the Netduino-plattform and I could imagine that you get some sponsorship by adding Azure support (you don't need to confirm or deny ;-))
Azure itself is an interesting platform, the reason why I still run my own server is that it's cheaper when you don't just need a plain webserver. For me I need also some more database space, which makes Azure quite expensive very fast - are you maybe also in discussion with Microsoft to provide some IoT/Netduino-pricing which also fits more to the pricing segment of low-cost devices?
Thanks
Personally I think the Azure pricing is pretty great. SQL space is expensive on it, but remember that you are getting enterprise-level stuff, not just a hacked together SQL instance on unreliable hardware. With that in mind, they can only cut prices to a certain extent before they sacrifice quality (which it is pretty obvious that they won't do).
It could almost make sense for them to add a "personal" SQL option for clients who don't need 99.95% uptime SLA etc, but that would just confuse matters IMO.