What is Windows Azure? That's the question I was asking myself before I attended a Scottish Developers event at Microsoft's Edinburgh offices at Waverly Gate on Friday 9th September 2011.

Steve Plank gave an excellent talk on getting to grips with Windows Azure. Steve or Planky as he is known is a Microsoft Architect Evangelist.

So what is the Microsoft Windows Azure platform?

Do you have your head in the clouds, or more specifically "your heads in the cloud"? No I'm not asking if you have wholly unrealistic and impractical ideas, I am in fact asking whether you have yet considered the cloud as part of the future of your business; whether small or large, regional or multi-national embracing the cloud could offer substantial benefit for your business.