http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2L-xZBCoqo Scott Guthrie has made a big bounce at Microsoft. He was the key developer of ASP.net and now he’s the Corporate VP for Windows Azure. At the 2012 Silicon Valley Code Camp conference, I spoke with Guthrie about ASP.net and its tools, as well as the potential of Windows Azure and open source. Here are some highlights from our discussion.

• While the tools for ASP.net are fantastic, it's less so for Azure. Guthrie said Microsoft is trying to make Visual Studio the ultimate IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for cloud-based solutions.
• Support for some scenarios are admittedly weak or nonexistent, such as data partitioning, data sharing, multi-tier and end-to-end diagnostics. Microsoft is working to build those out.
• Most people don’t understand that Azure has the unique ability to do PaaS (Platform as a Service) and IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) together. In a way they can partner and be competitive with services such as Rackspace and Amazon EC2.
• Microsoft is embracing more open source technologies. This will allow you to simultaneously use a combination of tech in the Microsoft ecosystem and the open source ecosystem.