Microsoft Wants To Buy Love In Silicon Valley | TechCrunch

Accelerating cloud competition

"Microsoft is making a play for the hearts, minds, and future business of startups. Give a team half a million in cloud computing, and that is a half million that the smaller company doesn’t have to raise in the near-term. That allows companies to spend more efficiently, and delay pricing their firms, likely allowing for a higher valuation mark to be set.

Amazon’s AWS cloud platform remains the de facto choice among startup founders that I speak to here in the Valley. The Azure deal may tip the scales slightly among the current Y Combinator class, and those that follow, as the program will recur. It will be interesting to see what percentage of the current Y Combinator class chooses Azure over AWS, and keeps that choice through the end of the period and into their life as a launched company."

Microsoft Wants To Buy Love In Silicon Valley | TechCrunch