Microsoft to Launch Amazon EC2 Rival. Again

And they are going to offer virtual linux servers, which you can customize all you want.

This is great, because Amazon could use some competition, and tying everything to .NET did not make Azure a relevant competitor for many domains.

Let's hope this brings the prices down. Amazon has had a huge profit margin, that people were willing to put up with, simply because no other party offered quite the same flexibility and scale.

"This distinction is subtle. And the terminology is annoying."

No, the distinction is not subtle or annoying. An analogy would be brewing your own beer. There are several ways to do this. Buy everything and brew it yourself at home (EC2), or start a brew at a brew shop and let them watch it for you (Azure, AppHarbor, Heroku, AppEngine).