An unofficial announcement about the launch date of Azure, Microsoft's cloud platform for the community of developers, has been made by the company.

As has been confirmed by Gianpaolo Carraro, Director for Microsoft's Developer and Platform Strategy Team, Azure Australia will be launched on February 23 and "availability of the product will be a few weeks after that".

For about a year, Azure was put to trial in the US, and the paid product was officially launched on 1 February, with availability in limited countries including US, Europe and New Zealand.

"There is a lot of interest and a lot of conversations in the developer communities in how they can leverage that platform for their application. It's also a great platform for the web for PHP developers. There are a lot of companies from small players to very large enterprises that are embracing it", said Mr. Carraro.

With the Azure hitting Australia later in February, the country will become a part of the second wave of launches.