From the Editors: No light in Microsoft's tunnel
By SD Times Editorial Board
July 15, 2011 —
(Page 1 of 3)
Microsoft’s decision to reveal little about the next version of the Windows operating system has left some of its partners in the ecosystem—as well as corporate customers—feeling as if they’re driving blindly into the future. Meanwhile, Microsoft displays the arrogance that has fueled its reputation as an evil monolith that wants global dominance at any and all costs.
All we’ve heard from Microsoft to date is that Windows 8 will support standards for Web application development: HTML5, CSS and JavaScript. More is expected to be revealed at the hastily arranged BUILD 2011 conference set for September, which seems to be the latest incarnation of Microsoft’s PDC. Clearly, the company is on the path toward its stated goal of becoming the largest hosting company in the world, and of making big inroads in the smartphone and tablet space. It hopes to achieve this by opening up its platform to all developers, not just those using Microsoft-centric languages and tools.
But what of that latter group of developers? Where does their future lie? Is it in ASP.NET? Not clear. Silverlight? Not likely beyond the phone. The .NET Framework itself? As Larry O’Brien pointed out in his insightful column (“How will Microsoft fill the gap?” p. 65), it seems to be the best solution for working in the space between the presentation layer and the systems layer, but as he also notes, Microsoft has been surprisingly quiet on this topic as well.
Microsoft’s partners and customers have ongoing projects and need to know the future of the platform they’re writing to, and of the tools with which they create their applications. As one partner told SD Times, “Windows 8 is locked down so much that even our contacts inside Microsoft don’t know” what’s in store.
This is just bad business. Companies have projects in the works that rely on the very technologies Microsoft now might abandon. If they’re building an application that’ll be done in four to six months, the platform should remain stable. But if they’re halfway through a two-year project that targets, say, Windows Presentation Foundation, and in September Microsoft says WPF is winding down, there’s greater concern.
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