That will make Microsoft own:
- #1 Code repository: Github
- #1 Package management repository: NPM
- One of the most popular editors: VSCode
- THE container engine: Docker
I have nothing against this btw, but just wonder at which point the government will throw the antitrust card
(IANAL; this is one layman's understanding, not legal advice)
Start selling Microsoft products to the bought userbases? But I suspect Microsoft is targeting companies rather than the developers themselves. Cynically, the drug dealer strategy? Get your (big, slow to change) customers dependent on the free stuff and then jack up the price?
Or bundle free software in a development environment to attract SMEs and open source developers. Then integrate and promote Microsoft's own propitiatory development offerings? Convert open source developers into Microsoft developers by owning the open source developers' tools of choice?
The tools will be maintained well. And also they'll integrate incredibly well with Microsoft's own software[1]. And with more Microsoft developers that means more Microsoft software sold to companies.
[1] Kotlin is a good example of this. Kotlin was integrated so well into Android Studio. I just pressed one button and, bang, kotlin. I never went back to Java.
MS already has a working business model (a very lucrative one at that) for enterprise, they can just integrate it into their existing user base and they will gladly pay. There's no hidden agenda.
I want to really stress that your thesis is on point, but it's not about cloud hosting per se. If software is eating the world, and everyone is going to have some level of proficiency as a dev, Microsoft is targeting being the digital operating system of the economy. You write and run your business on Microsoft, whether you're a Fortune 500 or 5 people working out of a coworking space, and you can even get email, team chat, office apps, workflow automation tools, and everything else under the MS umbrella if that's what your business needs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaVTHG-Ev4k
I don't know if I should be happy about Microsoft going away from the Not Invented Here-mindset or sad that the best companies get owned by the biggest companies.
In the end, who makes the decision on which tools to use? Developers and technical leads, not some CEO or middle management. Position yourself withing the developer community, built a good name, andbe sure they will consider other Microsoft services as well. Especially when they already integrate very well with you toolchain.
I think MS is mostly trying to ensure cohesion between the tooling and their Azure platforms/services. This is their longer term strategy... which has largely moved Directory services and Office to subscriptions models, and shoring up the losses of Windows Server deployments with rented servers on their infrastructure being the least friction and a revenue source moving forward.
Again, honest question, obviously IANAL.
What they actually mean is the opposite. They want to make Azure the easy choice when developing with Docker. They go on to say it can take hours or days to get the integration set up manually.
If Azure “just works” and the other clouds take days to get integrated, owning Docker would let them make Azure integration a priority while neglecting or sabotaging integration to other clouds. The gap gets bigger and Azure feels even more like the obvious choice if you want to get anything done.
IMO one of the major cloud vendors will buy Docker this year. Microsoft seems like the obvious choice right now.
Which is a playbook they've demonstrated as recently as last October, on Mover[1]. It used to allow you to migrate data between a whole host of sources and destinations, and the guides/help docs even still reference those capabilities. Microsoft acquired it and made it free, but have turned it into a one-way tool: the only supported destinations are now Azure, Sharepoint, and OneDrive.
The question is: did they do this to win market share? I think it makes _total_ sense for MS to make a bunch of GitHub services free. I also think it's harmful to competition.
One of the worst policy choices the US has made in the last 30 years is judging antitrust almost _entirely_ through the lens of "monetary cost to end users".
The less reasons there are for using GitLab (private repos was one thing which got me initially, using GitLab over my self administered servers to move code around and share with friends) the better for keeping their quasi-monopoly.
But VS Code has been a smooth experience since then.
I only brought it up because it certainly played a role on github having no longer a reason to invest resources in it having a better alternative being also developed in-house. And I also recall from other HN threads, much vocal users asking GitHub CEO about it, and why he stated just after the acquisition that Atom would be maintained even as Microsoft owning Github from there on... Which didn't happen.
In retrospect, I'm glad I did. The biggest features to me beyond a simple editor are a directory tree view, and an integrated terminal. I don't think anything had that, or at least not nearly as well working before VS Code that I recall. Everything else on top of that is just extras. Git integration, test extensions, integrations galore. In the end, VS Code has been a really great experience for me. It takes a little longer to load than the simple editors.
This doesn't even get into the Remote WSL/SSH extensions that I've started to make more use of the past few months. I've used vscode on Windows, Linux and Mac, and overall don't think I've been happier with a single editor.
In the EU, monopoly is gauged by how much choice and diversity is lost, even in the face of free product. I am very much aligned with the EU view of monopoly.
Dumping free services is great (temporarily) for the user, but ultimately harms them in that it starves out competition that can't afford such dumping.
*edit, words.
IMHO, price is one thing you look at as a customer. If the value you derive is greater than what you pay for it you should definitely pay the price for the product.
people don’t use vscode because it’s free. they use it because it’s great.
The convenient to download and install on any machine at any given time without having to deal with payment removes friction and it's a huge thing.
And I have no problem paying for an IDE, but I stopped because VSCode was as good, if not better, than any paid option out there for my uses.
Users of technical software (I.e. developers, especially for websites) have never had it better.
> In the EU, monopoly is gauged by how much choice and diversity is lost, even in the face of free product. I am very much aligned with the EU view of monopoly.
Interestingly the US used to have the EU viewpoint as well, until the 1970s. Robert Bork was one of the main people behind that.
For those interested in a deeper look at Antitrust in America, Planet Money had a great three part series on the topic [1].
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/03/20/704426033/anti...
it was just a hypothetical question.
You can connect one Excel File via Azure functions via another Excel file with seemless integration.
This wouldn't be the sort of acquisition where MS takes what it wants for itself and kills the product. Not mentioned (unless I missed it) in the article is that Docker has been putting in a lot of work to make the tooling work well with WSL 2. So, having a foot in both Windows and Linux.
The real argument is that the ever increasing scope of these entities create moats far out from the walls of their code product to drive user inwards to the paid offerings and, either by design or happen stance, alt the earth for miles from other smaller rivals gaining any foot holds delivering a service to sections of the user base of these hegemonic organisations from which in time might see the smaller rivals use such traction to then offer competing alternatives of those paid services which hegemonic organisations are based on.
Even if I only ever had to do it once... having the option is much better than not.