Dare I say it, but if you need to run Microsoft in the cloud then Azure is probably a good bet these days. Also, if you don't already have MSDN and want to run a Microsoft stack you can get a BizSpark license and that comes with some good freebies.
Btw, I ran the feature team that built the APIs that powershell and Visual Studio use. So if you don't like those, that's probably my fault. :)
Its also VERY annoying that only 1 Live account can have permission to sign in and manage the Account and Services. Yes, I know you can do some stuff with the certificates to allow others to deploy, but its a huge pain. Especially for a startup with a few people who are trying to learn and manage our account.