During the past Connect(); event in New York Microsoft made clear they love Linux and Open Source. Their .NET framework is now open source which shows this love. But Satya Nadella earlier already stated Microsoft Love Linux.
In the beginning Azure only exists of Microsoft related products. In fact Azure was only PAAS. Virtual Machines like with Amazon wasn’t possible. There has been something called VM Role but luckily this was replaced very quickly by the real IAAS.
Since the new HTML portal (http://manage.windowsazure.com) IAAS or Virtual Machine belong to Microsoft Cloud landscape. And Linux images belonged to them on day one! Many frowned their eyebrows, the number of images just went up. On the current preview Portal (http://portal.azure.com) the list of Linux images is really big. And I think it is not the end yet. Perhaps in the Marketplace other vendors will sell and service other Linux images. The bigger the demand, the bigger the offering.
During my daily walk through the Azure portal (Microsoft Azure grows very quick) I saw I could service my own Minecraft server. The only thing you need, a name and 15 minutes. After that you got your own Minecraft server. How cool! This one runs on a Linux image by the way.
What is your reason not to use Microsoft Azure?