The lead dev, Georgem, wants to know what the community thinks and he want to listen to the pros and cons. He is open to the idea of working towards joining the Azure program if the overall feedback warrants a closer look and it doesn't end up compromising the project or the principle of decentralization.
I personally support this simply because I can make IMMEDIATE use of this inclusion to build applications on top of the SPR block chain and integrate this with other Azure components (database, websites, etc.). Many companies (that I know) already have Azure services and it instills a lot of confidence having SPR be part of that service offering. I don't believe this takes away from the decentralization principle simply because there are no modifications needed on the SPR side of things. Provide an API and everybody is happy!