Microsoft is turning into an open source company

Question

Microsoft is slowly turning into an open source company and promoting open source projects and languages. What is your take on this topic?

Venkatesh Kumar · Answer

First Thanks for the interesting topic... Every one noticed that microsoft move or promoting Open Source... yes i totally agreed, because MS Azure now supports hosting for Node.js and Azure Mobile service is build on top of Node.js. Recently SignalR is joined as part of ASP.NET framework.

Mahesh Chand · Answer

Here is the article on Wired I was talking about http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/01/meet-bill-gates/

Mahesh Chand · Answer

Good points Venkatesh. As a matter of fact when I was reading about SignalR that's when I realized I should write a blog on Microsoft open-source initiative. I also read an article in a magazine about before Bill Gates left Microsoft, he has started this open source initiative. So it has been cooking for a while.

Vithal Wadje · Answer

Mahesh sir we are waiting for your blog regarding this topic so we can better understand about it

Mahesh Chand · Answer

Well said, Vuples. As always! I am just finishing up a blog on the same topic. I would like to add a few more points here that proves that Microsoft is moving in the open-source direction (of course without Windows, Office and Servers). #1. CodePlex is open source and most of the projects are submitted by Microsoft #2. JQuery and JavaScript are a part of dev platform #3. ASP.NET is open source now. I bet you didn't know this. #4. TypeScript and HTML 5 support in Visual Studio 2012 and more .. coming soon!

Vulpes · Answer

Well, there certainly have been some moves in that direction - notably the setting up of MS Open Technologies - though I can't see them 'going the whole hog' whilst their cash cows (Office, Windows) remain proprietary. As far as programming languages are concerned, the emphasis now seems to be on Javascript/HTML5 for applications development and C++ for system development. Despite denials, it looks to me like .NET is taking a back seat with Anders Hejlsberg and Mads Torgersen working now on TypeScript rather than C# and Eric Lippert having left the company altogether. TypeScript appears to be an attempt to graft strong-typing onto Javascript and therefore make it more acceptable to .NET or Java programmers. Whether it will succeed or not remains to be seen.