Azure service platform is a cloud computing platform hosted in Microsoft data centers. This provides operating system & different set of development service which the developers can use to build their own web applications or enhance them directly in that platform. Without purchasing any upfront technology, developers can create their applications more quickly & easily in the cloud. They only need working knowledge in .Net Framework & Visual Studio Environment. Azure service currently supports native languages. In future it will support many more including Microsoft & Non-Microsoft languages. Once the coding is done, the developer can build & host the application in the cloud, so that end user will be able to run it over the internet.
Azure platform consists of Windows Azure, which is an Operating System to provide on demand computing, storage and management of cloud applications. In short, Windows Azure is an Operating System for the cloud computing platform designed for utility computing. It provides facilities to write, host or manage applications & store data on demand. The service layer consists of different services like: Live Service, .Net Service, SQL Service etc. which provides building blocks within the platform for the developers.