I agree with what you said. I worked with .net since the 1.0 days and after years of staunch support, I got a job last year working with python/javascript on a unix stack and kissed microsoft technologies goodbye.

You're absolutely right about Microsoft being behind the curve. There's a pattern of denial when it comes to new technologies, and a total ineptitude at spotting new trends and adapting to them. I watched with envy for years as all the rails kids played with their new toys until Microsoft got its shit together and came up with an MVC solution.

The whole world is using flash? Lets come up with a knock-off 5 years too late. Interactivity is a big deal? Let's try to convince them that webforms is MVC until its too late. Who needs javascript anyways? Distrubuted software you say? Let's not jump on the REST bandwagon, lets make WSDL defined web services and make a shitty API on top! Why have an ORM solution when putting all of your business logic in SQL is SO EASY with microsoft? See, I can drag and drop a database connection from Visual Studio!

I love C# as much as the next person. It's a great language. SQL Server is a pretty good relational database. But if you choose to devote all of your energy to Microsoft development and don't learn anything else, you have nobody to blame expect for yourself when you find your skill-set behind the curve.

.Net developers would never agree about the big-data part, because to be honest they haven't invested time into understanding what data science is. There are so many IT shops developing on the Microsoft stack that make less than say 50 million a year that have tons of data (billions of records they say!). Maybe they make CRM software, or school software, or an inventory system for a small grocery store. They have tons of test scores, purchase records, waste numbers, demographic info, yet if you ask them to develop something that gives you insight into what factors influence student performance, or to visualize perchasing trends, or to predict sales numbers so that the company doesn't over purchase perishables, you'll get a blank stare. The idea that data can be transformed into useful information, and that this isn't simply a matter of CRUD hasn't occurred to them. They probably don't even replicate their db for their half ass attempt at reporting, so they wouldn't begin to understand what something like hadoop even does.

You simply CANNOT explain to a .net zealot what big data is. They just don't get it. "It's stored in the database, and its a few terabytes...how big does it need to get? We aren't Google afterall!"