In order to spur adoption, Microsoft is offering free and reduced price packages for Windows Azure. All of these packages are available from February 1st thru June 30th, with January free to everyone using the North America data centers.
The introductory special is highly restricted with only 25 hours/month of compute time, ½ GB of compute storage, and 1 GB of database storage. In real dollars, this offer is worth $13.35 per month for the first three months. After that the database storage is dropped, reducing the value to $3.40/month. This would hardly be worth talking about, except to illustrate how little Microsoft is planning to charge Azure users.
Both Development Accelerator packages include 750 hours of monthly compute time and 10 GB of compute storage. They also include 7 GB of inbound data transfer and 14 GB outbound transfer. The Extended edition adds a 10 GB relations database, which alone normally goes for $99.99/month. For February thru June the basic edition goes for $59.95/month and the extended edition for $109.95/month.
Both the price comparison chart and the training kit have been posted to Microsoft’s website.
