Last week I was at Microsoft HQ in Redmond, WA, USA. I was invited by the SQL Azure Development Team to look at some of the new unreleased features and comment on features in their roadmap.
Unfortunately most of the content was confidential, meaning that I was under NDA, so I may not disclose any details. Sorry :-/
During the week with the SQL Azure Development Team I was fortunate to be engaged in technical detailed discussion about some of the upcoming feature releases – mainly discussing the SQL Server features not currently available in SQL Azure. It was interesting and enlightening at the same time to discuss their technical challenges and why they have build SQL Azure the way they have.
All in all, my conclusion after this event is that Microsoft takes SQL Azure seriously and it will become a major player in the RDBMS world. It will not just be a SQL Server in the cloud, but a separate product with different market segments and different features. I am looking forward to a bright future with SQL Azure 
I encourage you to look at the