Just read this article and, I hate to admit it; I really, really hate to admit it. I think Microsoft is right on with this one and it scares me. I see so many people looking at new technology in this down economy and that is helping Redhat because MS Server with SQL Server is about 5K/year. Compared to about 1K/year for RHEL5/MySQL, it looks pretty good. But if your cloud computing offers are about the same price, now you have competition and since Microsoft holds the home court advantage, this is bad. People love the mushy familiarity of Windows, and if I they can buy it at 12 cents/hour, that is a pretty attractive offer.
Steve Ballmer is still an idiot though.
Update: Technically Linux on Amazon is a bit cheaper at .10 cents/hour, and Microsofts solution is a bit more expensive on storage too at 15 cents/gigabyte