Microsoft continues to evangelize the Windows Azure cloud platform to new and different audiences. The latest case in point: The Azure team was on hand at this week’s SugarCon — an open source conference in San Francisco that attracted more than 800 attendees. In fact, Microsoft was SugarCon’s top sponsor, and the company’s relationship with SugarCRM seems to be blossoming. Here’s what it means.

No doubt, Microsoft wants open source ISVs to support Azure. A SugarCon presentation delivered by Microsoft Senior Platform Strategy Advisor Dan Moore and Principal Architect Bhushan Nene, both of the Cloud ISV Team, gave software vendors an overview of the benefits of launching cloud applications on Azure.

In terms of the Microsoft-SugarCRM relationship, Moore told our blog team that a SugarCRM beta on Azure is shaping up well, with general availability expected later this year.

SugarCon has an entire track dedicated to cloud computing, and SugarCRM itself is a cloud-deployable, open-source CRM solution, so Microsoft’s presence at the conference seemed like “right place, right time” thinking.

Under CEO Larry Augustin, SugarCRM has spent the last year strengthening its partner program and also deferring SaaS opportunities to hosting partners and integrators. The message from SugarCRM has been clear: Instead of becoming a SaaS giant on its own, SugarCRM wants partners to put the application in the cloud.

Microsoft seems more than happy to embrace that strategy.

Additional perspectives from Joe Panettieri. Sign up for The VAR Guy’s Newsletter; Webcasts and Resource Center; and follow The VAR Guy via RSS; Facebook; Identi.ca; Twitter and VARtweet.