Hey all, following this thread a bit. I can assure you that Azure is being used in production by thousands of small ISVs as well as many large ones. That being said your points are valid - pricing is still way too difficult to understand. There is a profitability modeler available on the Azure site. What I would recmmend you do is download and use that to determine if azure is the right platform for your app and business model. The tool asks for a lot of parameters, like how many compute instances do you need? To get a better understanding of this as well as web roles, worker roles, etc - I would recommend setting up a POC environment. I assume as an ISV that you understand how your product is used and can recreate a typical customer environment to get a sense of the performance and utilization. Then you can return to the Azure Profitability tool and get a sense of cost & profit. Your POC environment should be free to set up and configure using any of the AZURE free offers available including your MSDN subscription, Bizspark (for startups), Cloud Essentials for Microsoft Partners (www.microsoftcloudpartner.com) - there is a significant amout of free monthly usage as part of all 3 offers and the last 2 do not require any fees to get started. MSDN of course has a fee. Chris

Hi John, I haven't forgotten about you I'm working with the bing maps team to get the answer.

Looking at this thread I can't help but jump in. First full disclosure - I'm a Microsoftie. I work with small ISVs. Its a group we are super passionate about and critical to success so if we get it wrong, and we sometimes do, we are committed to fixing it. I also recognize that getting the right information from us isn't always as easy as it should be. Its an area we are constantly trying to improve. Enough mea culpa. As a small ISV you should be getting your software dev licenses through MAPS (Microsoft Action Pack)- https://partner.microsoft.com/global/program/memsubscriptions[^]it's the replacement for Empower for ISVs. About testing - Most of the former tests have been replaced with the new "platform ready" tests. They are free and self service. We have tests avail for Azure, Win7, WinServ, SQLServ, Exchange, Lync, and MS CRM. All of these test can be used to qualify for the Microsoft Partner Program as an ISV - which provides you with upgraded MSDN access. If you are an ISV with a valid solution but because of the way you deploy you cannot pass one of the tests then you can apply for a test waiver. The tests and waivers process are available at www.microsoftplatformready.com Hope that helps - i am interested in hearing about other things the community feels we are taking away, or anything that you'd like to see us add.