Question: Does anyone know if its feasible to convert PCM/FLAC files to some compressed format (mp3/wma/ogg, not picky), **with the conversion process running on Azure**?

An Amazon EC2 based solution would be trivial, as 3rd party libraries could be installed; but what about Azure?

Answer: 
Yes, you do miss something: the command pattern is only necessary in languages that don't have function pointers (or functions as first class objects), such as Java. In languages with functions-as-objects, you can use the function itself; no need to have a separate command object (which then should have a "doit" method).

In the example could you quote, the `getattr()` call gives you the "command object" (i.e. the bound method); adding parenthesis after it "invokes" (i.e. calls) the command object.
Did some searching and found this. It appears to do the job of encapsulating an action.

```
def demo(a,b,c):
    print 'a:',a
    print 'b:',b
    print 'c:',c

class Command:
    def __init__(self, cmd, *args):
        self._cmd=cmd
        self._args=args

    def __call__(self, *args):
       return apply(self._cmd, self._args+args)

cmd=Command(dir,__builtins__)
print cmd()

cmd=Command(demo,1,2)
cmd(3)

```