It is a false advertising campaign. They offer a Free Introductory offer. Its free alight!! We all know nothing comes for free in this life. The offer clearly states 25 hours compute time free. Trouble is how you and I interpret compute time. I thought CPU time, if thought the same - wrong. Compute time = time ie. hours on the clock time. So if you use the service and have a live (active or stopped) (production or stage) application you will be charged 0.072732 Per hour of service uptime, so for a month 7 days * 4 weeks = 672 hrs 25 hrs (free, yes 1 day, just 1 day per month is free) = 647 * 0.072732 = $47.057604 per month To stop the charges immediately delete all applications and services. Email customer support and ask them to cancel your trial account. As a previous lover of Microsoft and as a developer for a long time I couldnt understand why anyone would use anything other than Microsoft. My opinion has changed. With this and windows 7 I see Microsoft are a company going backwards, they have no regard for ethics or their customers. Avoid avoid avoid.
Flynrider
Phoenix,#2Consumer Comment
Thu, December 16, 2010
The Azure agreement defines Compute Time :
"Compute time, measured in service hours: Windows Azure compute hours are charged only for when your application is deployed. When developing and testing your application, developers will want to remove the compute instances that are not being used to minimize compute hour billing. Partial compute hours are billed as full hours. "
When I read that, I understand that time will be billed if the instance is deployed, even if it's not being used. That would tell me that billing is done by clock time rather than CPU time.
In the long run this is probably a good thing. It's not healthy to be a self professed "lover" of a large, faceless corporation.
Karl
Highlands Ranch,#3Consumer Comment
Thu, December 16, 2010
in the consumer comments section at Ripoff Report #411913.