Re: Loong term view
"Always have the impression that Azure tries to grab the market share of small and medium sized Windows users where the integration is valuable"
I would say that Azure is primarily focused on large and enterprise sized customers. SMEs often don't have the resouces to develop cloud integration. Not that Azure isn't sometimes a good solution for smaller companies, but I don't think that's the primary focus at the moment.
"but by which metric/from which environment you find Azure easier to use?"
The vast majority of standard cloud / infrastructure / SaaS / IaaS processes that you might want to do are easier and simpler to automate in Azure and the integration is way better to standard corporate systems like Active Directory. From personal experience of both.
"but for the software development business that are not 100% MS centered, is that the case"
I think so with the various Linux support options that Azure now has. And full Azure support from Oracle, Sap, Hadoop HDInsight, etc. etc.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
