I run a small web development company with about 10 employees. All our developers use Notepad++ (or equivalent) and our designers use Photoshop.

Hi Javaman59. I run my own web startup and in the first year found myself moving from a dedicated windows server to a cloud based linux solution for the significant performance improvements. The learning curve for linux administration wasn't too big and if you're already developing for .net/mssql I'm sure you can handle it. PM me if you want any specific recommendations or articles to start with. Good luck, it sounds like a fun project.

P.S. 2nd vote for Azure if you're sticking with a M$ platform.