> You cannot add RAM [+ CPU Cores] on the fly... I doubt that this type of instant scaling is useful for the typical .NET shops that serve small and medium siz

> You cannot add RAM [+ CPU Cores] on the fly... I doubt that this type of instant scaling is useful for the typical .NET shops that serve small and medium size businesses and still sell a lot of on-premise solutions and niche-market web apps. > That's one OS license, one SQL Server license and one Visual Studio license per developer. Not necessarily. I just worked with a client who had every one of their 10 developers on SQL Server Express (free, with 10GB db limit) and Visual Studio 2013 Express (also free) which is good enough for doing basically anything in the MS universe. The computers they bought came with Windows. My current client has me working at home where I use my own copy of Windows 2012 R2 + Visual Studio 2013 Pro and SQL Server Web edition which I got all for free via a free WebSpark membership that I signed up for 2 years ago.