@Zogg This BYO Linux VM image option will likely persist. In addition, I expect that Linux vendors such as Red Hat, SuSE and Canonical will make Hyper-V images (via downloads from their own web sites) available to their customers. However, in the future I would expect to see Microsoft partnerships with the likes of Attachmate (read SuSE), Red Hat and, perhaps, even Canonical where they both provide and are responsible for their own Linux VM images available on Azure. I believe that such partnerships will be necessary for Microsoft to compete with Amazon and other Cloud providers.
And due to Microsoft's patent issues with Linux (right or wrong), I would expect SuSE to be on-board first because of the existing partnership between Microsoft and Attachmate (SuSE's parent company). If Microsoft does not let up on the patent issues, Red Hat and Canonical may never come on-board. However, perhaps they can all agree to disagree.
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