401–410 of 561 posts
Microsoft has realized that it can't afford to lose anymore developer mindshare and it's creating some really spectacular results. This is a Microsoft I can be excited about!
An area that Micro$oft seems to ignoring is their device as in Barcode scanners that are still stuck on .Net 3.5 and VS 2008. Its matter of time before Andriod steals this and drives more developers to Java/Google.
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Some HN'ers may not recall Microsoft's "sleeping giant awakes" moment with the Internet in the 90's. Speaking of tidal waves, hang on to your surfboards, it's going to be big and fast. http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/07/internet-tidal-wave.htm...
It is now just a month shy of 20 years since that letter was written. And what did Microsoft do? They bought a browser and gave it away for free, cutting off Netscape at the knees, til the company folded and become the Mozilla Foundation. They poured billions and billions of dollars into online initiatives from the Microsoft Network to Bing, including buying dozens and dozens of companies. None of those were big succ…
This ridiculous comparison shows just how clueless you are about the .NET platform and Windows development.
Ever since Nadella took over at Microsoft, such news items are becoming more and more frequent. Ten years ago, my first reaction at such a headline would have been to check my calendar if it's April 1st. Microsoft has come a long way from the company that everybody loved to hate. IMHO, they still have a long way ahead of them, but it's nice to see they seem to be serious about it. With Ballmer at the helm, I had the…
If have something popular, e.g., .NET, then make it open and promote it as a standard. Then come out with enhancements every few months.
Part of the script is what Ballmer once said in his uniquely understated way -- "Developers! Developers! Developers!"
Then initially many developers will adopt and use the standard because it's open and, thus, close to universal, at least pretty good, and free.
Then, later, as Microsoft makes improvements each few months, it will be next to impossible for anyone else to make a fork that is competitive so that Microsoft will, then, continue to own the standard. Or, if a developer wants some new feature X, then they will likely just wait for the next version of the standard and hope.
So, thusly owning the standard, Microsoft controls a major part of computing which can be very powerful for Microsoft and a farm where only Microsoft plows, seeds, and harvests.
E.g., nearly all the developers would be on .NET, etc., but Microsoft and only Microsoft knows where the .NET standard will be in version n + 1, n + 2, ... out several years into the future. Then the rest of Microsoft can start development now that exploits the standard, say, two years from now while everyone else has to wait two years even to start. Bingo. Presto. The parts of Microsoft that exploit the standard get a two year head start.
Or, maybe at one time a computer company, say, HAL, designed, manufactured, and sold hardware, operating system software, middle ware software, and applications software. Then they had hardware enhancements right along, say, each year or so.
Well, the hardware specification about had to be in the manual Principles of Operation and, thus, essentially open. So, some plug compatible manufacturer, say, GA, could get the manual and build a cheaper version of the hardware.
Well, the HAL software people knew what good, new functionality was coming to their hardware some years before GA or anyone else did and could have a head start of those years. One heck of an advantage.
Net, thusly owning an open standard can be very valuable.
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By design, Nadella is getting credit by design for 'overnight changes' many years in the making. Windows 10 reflects the strategic decisions embodied in Vista. Ballmer owned enough stock that along with Gates' backing Microsoft could produce a largely incompatible new version of the Windows OS and Wall Street could like it or lump it. Gates and Ballmer have been divesting Microsoft shares and the new company is behol…
> Windows 10 reflects the strategic decisions embodied in Vista Hope you mean "embodied in Windows 8". I still remember the day I replaced my Vista PC with one running Windows 7, and wondering why the OS was booting so fast. I doubt "Vista" was strategic in any way, more incompetent management, but would agree "Windows 8" had strategic considerations behind it.
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It is now just a month shy of 20 years since that letter was written. And what did Microsoft do? They bought a browser and gave it away for free, cutting off Netscape at the knees, til the company folded and become the Mozilla Foundation. They poured billions and billions of dollars into online initiatives from the Microsoft Network to Bing, including buying dozens and dozens of companies. None of those were big succ…
> .net which is just a renamed MFC I can't agree with this. MFC was a thin C++ encapsulation of the Windows API. It was a reasonably successful technology but was unloved largely because it was so thin - it didn't try to fix the ugly mess beneath and so left developers wrestling a large smelly octopus. .Net was more of a clean room attempt to provide developers with a clean, sane, consistent API built on a new virtua…
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By design, Nadella is getting credit by design for 'overnight changes' many years in the making. Windows 10 reflects the strategic decisions embodied in Vista. Ballmer owned enough stock that along with Gates' backing Microsoft could produce a largely incompatible new version of the Windows OS and Wall Street could like it or lump it. Gates and Ballmer have been divesting Microsoft shares and the new company is behol…
Indeed, Nadella is an opensource guy that had the chance to grow during Ballmer. While Microsoft (during Ballmer) had a slow change (going more opensource) from the bottom-to-top, there has been a faster change now from top-to-bottom. I remember Scott Hanselman, Scott Guthrie and Phil Haack (now at Github) during Ballmer as opensource contributors. Ballmer allowed opensource during his leadership, but employees would…
I know, such dreams were too far-fetched.
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There's ASP.Net and there's ASP.Net MVC. They're very different beasts, even though the latter is/was built upon the former. ASP.Net probably is on the way out, but MVC is not.
ASP.Net is going nowhere, the abomination known as Web Controls is on the way out (and good riddance). It will never go away, there's too much code and money involved, but it won't be used for new projects.
I would interpret that statement as: it's on the way out.