Microsoft has announced the availability of Windows Azure platform and has also unveiled a set of new Windows Azure features, Windows Server capabilities, marketplace offerings and Pinpoint, an online marketplace for its partners to market and sell their applications.

The company introduced a new information service codenamed ‘Dallas’, available through Pinpoint and built on the Windows Azure platform that enables developers and users to access commercial and reference datasets and content on any platform.

Microsoft is also offering Windows Server AppFabric Beta 1, a set of integrated, application services that enable developers to deploy and manage applications spanning both server and cloud.

According to Microsoft, the AppFabric technology combines hosting and caching technologies with the Windows Azure platform AppFabric Service Bus and AppFabric Access Control. Together, these technologies offer a set of application services to enhance both Windows Server and Windows Azure with a common foundation for running .NET applications.

The company also plans to offer Windows Server virtual machine support on Windows Azure, to enable customers to support virtualised infrastructure across the continuum of on-premises and cloud computing, and the release to manufacturing of Windows Identity Foundation, to help developers provide simplified user access to both cloud and on-premises applications with open, identity-based claims.

In addition, it has also released ASP.NET MVC2 beta, a free supported framework that enables developers to build standards-based web applications through asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) integration.