BTW, for those in the U.S. Mid-West and East coast, Microsoft is offering free 2 day in-person "boot camp" events for those wanting to give Azure a test drive. See http://www.azurebootcamp.com/

There are also some one week free trials with no credit card required. Here is a link to the last one. http://blogs.technet.com/webtech/archive/2010/04/05/windows-azure-one-week-virtual-boot-camp-april-5th-april-12th-2010.aspx

For an info about the 6,000 hour benefit via MSDN see: http://blogs.technet.com/webtech/archive/2010/03/22/6-000-hours-can-t-be-bad.aspx