[dba-Tech] Microsoft is evolving.

Microsoft is evolving into the 21 century and it is good to see it but for
people who have spent a great deal of time becoming conversant in many of
Microsoft's proprietary web based tools might be realizing it may not be
such a secure or as advanced technology as the open standards.

<quote>
...But there are clear signs that Microsoft is evolving as it struggles to
catch up with the 21st Century.

Take the web. Microsoft lumbered into the web app world with its
tried-and-once-true playbook: push the world to adopt Silverlight and lock a
generation of developers into Microsoft tools, then crank up the cash
register and collect license fees. The problem is that web developers had
already voted with their downloads and were snubbing Adobe Flex and
Silverlight in favor of open standards like HTML5 and Javascript.

Rather than fight the trend, Microsoft adopted it, and has been an active
proponent of HTML5 ever since - though not without some hesitation, it
should be noted. Why? Because an open web is very much in Microsoft's
interests, as The Register's Tim Anderson explains:

[Microsoft] realizes it must have a broad-reach platform alongside Windows
to succeed in the diverse world of mobile devices and increasing numbers of
Mac computers, and that its efforts with .NET and Silverlight are not able
to be that broad-reach platform.
"Hah!" You say, "Microsoft is only open when it suits the company's
interests!" Yes, but that's true of every company. Some just happen to have
business models that benefit from open code, while Microsoft, until now, has
not. The web is a game changer, and Microsoft's game is changing.

Take Microsoft's Skype acquisition. In the past, Microsoft would buy a
company and try to monetize its assets through license fees. But in the case
of Skype, as ZDNet's Mary-Jo Foley posits, advertising may well be the
revenue engine...
</quote>

Jim