edit: Thank you for all your answers!
Business-wise: The answer is Azure. While Microsoft wants you to run Windows, they care even more that you're running in their cloud.
The lock in here is a very hard to resist value proposition. I started using Azure because they gave hundreds of dollars a month for free (for I think 3 years). I then started to use their services because it's just simpler. Core made that decision even easier for me. I originally started using Core because my thinking was "if i'm on linux, I can always move to AWS, linux is pretty competitive everywhere", then I needed a solution that had a market place offer (which is not free) or an azure service offer (which is free). I decided to choose the azure solution, but I designed my software with an interface so in theory i could replace the implementation if I ever needed to move to AWS. However, i'm now starting to realize that while I've always tried to choose solutions so I can easily move, it's becoming increasingly more difficult. In 3 years I may have the capability to move, but i'm now becoming aware that it might not be practical to move. They got me.
First thing I have immediate trouble with is the phrasing of AWS which is confusing. Second is their offerings and ux which is also totally confusing. But when you get passed that, you still have to do more configures than in azure. If you do not use Visual Studio (VS) or .NET you can still download the whole deploy profile file you need directly from the app service within Azure.
In Azure, I can create a new project and it will autogenerate the entire profile for me, run my migrations and I can deploy from within visual studio in minutes.
Coming from a "classic open source background", Microsoft has totally won me over. I save so much time with Azure and VS it's crazy.
I have experience of AWS and Azure and personally I just think Azure beats AWS in every aspect.
This is truly an amazing feat. Imagine the cultural headwinds these guys were up against. They also won over the Microsoft Board of Directors to eject Steve Ballmer (finally). Hats off to Scott, Scott, Damien et al for staying the course and pulling off a coup.
That would give people a chance to see what's really happening, rather than just seeing bad actions + hearing weasel words (aka corporate speak) to justify them.
I'd like to hear what that is, as it seems (to me) to be a stellar example of what really should be.
It was a childish and immature comment, not appropriate for HN. That's why it is getting downvoted. In addition, this comment talking about the downvotes will get downvoted as well. Not only for the fact that you are talking about downvotes in your comment, but by the fact that your comment is effectively "begging the question."
Rather than make one-off snide comments, actually contribute something that is respectful to other people's time.
They seem to be making large numbers of moves trying to get people to use their platform... and at the same time, shooting themselves in the foot-head-foot with trust-destroying moves... and ignoring everything in relation to that. :(
"Maybe Microsoft should consider open sourcing the components of their system which track users. It's possible that this would help rebuild the trust that was eroded with the release of Windows 10."
Not quite true; Android Studio has some tools to help you get a mobile backend onto Google's cloud.
For the front end, this probably won't have much effect. Developers go where the users are and there's very little excitement around Windows applications (win32 or universal). If keeping developers happy was all that important, then Linux would be the dominant desktop OS.
> Microsoft has lost in server space against Linux. Developers developing any server software switch to either Linux or OSX. They want to prevent this switch.
Ubuntu has games and applications? Come back when Call of Duty 87 or Office 2016 works on Linux...
> Call of Duty
All you need is CS:GO. And you can get it on Linux. ;)
This one (from the same result set) may be useful too:
It just comes down to the fact that most enterprises like having technical support.
1) Use developer tools as onramps to Azure. Same reason Amazon made Lumberyard free. Yes, developers can opt for other clouds, but the effort required to do so will often seem more costly than it's worth.
2) Specifically for Xamarin, if you've already built your iOS and Android app in .NET, in Visual Studio, and there's little more than a recompile between you and a Windows Mobile version, why not do that too?
In a similar vein, Satya Nadella's new "vision" expressed in yesterday's keynote, aka the future of chat bots with their AI / personal agents (channeling some of the original General Magic vision of 25 years ago), strikes me as more attainable for "developers developers developers" v.s. the marketing messages / PR spin coming from IBM on the Watson AI.
> I'm learning React Native, MS is giving me pause to look at Xamarin.
Likewise. Let's see what Facebook has to say at F8 starting April 12th. The competition is great. We are in a much better place today v.s. 20 years ago when Microsoft was a monopoly and expending time and money trying to kill Netscape and battle Sun's lawyers over Java.
worked in the past, they hope it will work now.
The fact that ubuntu laid in bed with them is extremely scary.
You can develop Linux or Mac but you're not going to get the same quality tooling (hello Universal Windows App Model).
They're effectively following a freemium model, get as many developers onto the MS platform then direct them to Azure.
In my opinion the stategy is not to swallow Linux but rather to push .NET. On premise Servers are becoming less relevant Linux or Windows won't make much difference in the future. What will make a difference is what the cloud will support and provide.
Linux has had JetBrains IDEs for a long time now.
In any case, without Xamarin being ported to Linux and tied to VS, the embrace you're talking about is shortly followed by the other two "E"s.
Adapting to the market flow to stay relevant, that's all.
I always wonder about how companies with such resources manage to make so little use of the advantages they develop. For instance: why wasn't Watson running every callcenter on the planet 5 years ago ?
Right now there is little in Watson's tech that can't be duplicated by 10 other firms and give it another year or 5 and every startup can do it. It's too late. How can management of such behemoths as IBM let those things happen.
Not that Microsoft did better with Windows Speech Server, and Google and Facebook, well they're not even trying.
The new gen devs simply refused to buy into their old school closed shop practices.
evolve or die.
Seriously, do people even think before posting EEE on every Microsoft open source release? How exactly does that work?
Do you know what Microsoft did when they tried to kill Java? They implemented a version of JVM on their OS... and that in such a way that if you made apps for Microsoft's JVM, you wouldn't be able to run it on other platforms.
There is direct and indirect evidence that this is one of the core strategies Microsoft has used for many years. Given Microsoft's recent embracing of Linux and open source in general, which of the possibilities you think is likely:
1. After calling Linux and Open Source "cancer", "something to be not touched with a 12-foot pole", suing Linux and open source software makers for patent violations, making Linux vendors pay to not sue them, now they suddenly believe in healthy competition and want to part take in open source revolution
2. This is a new strategy to "embrace" Linux and Open Source to start extending at some point in order to finally extinguish it
EVEN IF there is A TINY possibility that scenario 1 may be true, I think it is a wise decision to ditch Microsoft for what they have done in the past.
I think alternative 2 is a really bad business decision nowadays and thus will never happen. The difference from the past and today is that they really have open sources a lot. They actually proves their agenda with code and support like never before.
You seem to think most Microsoft users choose their operating systems. They don't. Most of them don't know any better or even if they do, they keep on using the operating system that came with the computer. Also, they have to use software that only runs on Windows.
> they would for sure never win the users back.
People like me who know about this and care never go back. Fortunately for them, most people don't care. Those who choose them do so either because they have software to run on Windows or because of their excellent marketing in the corporate market.