Over the past year, the Windows Azure Marketplace team has worked directly with data providers to onboard new data into the Marketplace.  Today we have over a hundred datasets, from sports statistics to historical weather, available to build apps and perform analytics.

Today we are making available tools so that anyone with valuable data can distribute it in the Marketplace through a simple self-service wizard.  The publishing wizard allows you to design how your offer will appear on the Windows Azure Marketplace, including sample images, logos, and text.  Providers can choose to publish any data stored in SQL Azure with this initial release, and the tool will automatically test your database and recommend performance and configuration changes to provide the best experience in the marketplace.  You can even define your pricing options and enable free trials as part of the publishing process.

These new tools are part of the Publishing Portal, which provides capabilities to manage marketplace offers, view financial reports, and update tax and bank account information. If you have valuable data, you can visit our Publishing Portal today to distribute it on the Windows Azure Marketplace.  We’re looking forward to exploring a wealth of new data from our publishers and to see the apps and analytics that are created with them!