>>tbrown+ie1
A few years ago I talked to an developer advocate for Azure. I wanted to know why it took for ever when you wanted a new public IP. My take was that it felt like they went out on the internet to look for an IP to purchase from a 3rd. party. The answer I got was that do to the silos within Microsoft it might as well be a 3rd party supplier. The slowness is exactly because IPs are/were a managed by another Microsoft entity, who views any interaction, even within the company, as hostile.