Windows Azure Management Portal gets a facelift !!

Microsoft released a new UI for the Windows Azure Management Portal.
     - The new layout is far more intuitive then earlier one.
     - I am glad that they have not over-utilized Silvelright animations. Silvelright Animations are look cool when demonstrating or selling someting, but i have serious doubts about their usability in a day-to-day operational UI implementation.
     - Integartion of your all your Azure services and subscription in a single portal is a good, welcoming and much needed enhancement. I am especially loving the SQL Azure admin features built into the portal. Infomration Cube with DB usage statistics is nice feature as well that points to the increment level of maturity SQL Azure is going to see over new few releases.
     - Ribbon UI will also go a long way towards establishing consistent experience with other Microsoft Offcie products. I hope to see Ribbon also getting incorporated into Microsoft's Server and tools business over next few months and years.

    Azure still needs several cycles and set of services to be a true app dev platform, but this new portal seems to be a good step towards creating an experience for users that can be extended to new services ( as and when they are launched).

  I also like that they have link to the old portal, in case someone is in the middle of a project and doesn't want to get familiar with new portal, they can always swicth to the old portal. So not like some of Microsoft's other software releases !! :)

There are few glitches in the portal, but I hope they will get fixed in next few weeks/months.
Enjoy!!