As I understand it, xTV exists only when tied with Microsoft...

As I understand it, xTV exists only when tied with Microsoft Azure.  Therefore, xTV will live or die as Azure does.  So how is Azure doing relative to others?

Here is a relatively recent article on this : http://www.networkworld.com/article...ce-in-iaas-cloud-aws-and-microsoft-azure.html

the summary :  "Research firm Gartner’s annual report card on the public IaaS cloud computing market shows there is one clear leader – Amazon Web Services – and another clear challenger – Microsoft Azure. And then there is everyone else."

That's not a bad position to be in.