Why don't startups use the C#/.NET/Microsoft stack?
Is it just that the licensing cost is a barrier to entry? Or is there any reason why it's actually a bad idea?
Also, no appeal in moving to a closed-source platform. I know it has recently opened a bit but compared to Java is literally a drop in the ocean.
We could stretch to use .NET but the question is "why?" when Microsoft itself only opens their hand of a monopoly when is clearly losing traction.
So we took the intentional decision of using Java for our large-scale data processing (I mean large scale in the sense of handling a trillion files on disk) and Java is good enough to reduce development costs. One app runs across the whole enterprise stack, regardless of the operating system or CPU underneath.
My 0.2 cents.
I think there are a couple of things: 1. Amazon supports Linux better. 2. Good C# people go to work for big corporations. 3. Certain Funders (A16Z) really don't like Microsoft. Can't imagine why. :) 4. A lot of new, interesting stuff is open source, where MS doesn't really play. 5. The startups that use it don't talk about it. 6. MySQL. C# is cheap. SQL Server... not so much historically. 7. Microsoft lagged behind on the modern javascript world. Still does a bit.
From where I sit (Capital Factory in Austin), I see about 10% C#/.Net. There is probably another 5-10% that I don't see.
Microsoft has always been very good to developers. I think the biggest consideration would be can you find and hire good people on the stack. But then, that is always going to be the main issue.
OF course since they also charged per user licensing for servers, if you're a startup you might as well use linux which is "Free" (at least free of cost, you still need human resources to manage the machines.)
Finally their confusing constantly changing product and development strategy left people worn out- once you were locked into one technology they would introduce another.
Open source basically destroyed all of MSFTs advantages for development in tech companies, and now you only use MSFT technology if you're only deploying on MSTF machines.
Oh, and MSFT killed the packaged software market-- which was completely dead, you really couldn't sell apps, until Apple created the App store-- because they wanted to own the desktop completely. There used to be a rich ecosystems of desktop apps but they were all killed- the only exception like Adobe and ... and I can't think of any other exceptions--were that way because they gobbled up smaller companies faster than MSFT did and got big enough to compete.
MSFT killed the desktop software market completely....again, except on Apple platforms where it was a level playing field. (but all the MBAs in eh 1990s would say "macs don't have enough market share" and kill mac versions, even though in cases where companies did do cross platform they often made all their profits on the mac, and had the larger sales of the PC washed away by the much larger support costs for PC customers.)