[BillGoates]

I would tell Microsoft to go back to their 90s mindset. Less focussed on big corporations, and more on getting (Windows) Microsoft software everywhere. Back then Microsoft was maybe an evil empire, but at least they did some exciting things from a developers viewpoint.

@Balmer: Get rid of .NET. There are people who use it, and some of them actually like it, but it will never become the huge success you thought it would become. This also means Silverlight has to go. The JIT compiler, with an open sourced assembly language, could get a 2nd life in the browser.

For a next OS, have a good long look at Windows 2000. Start from there, and instead of adding millions lines of code, start rewriting to make it smaller and faster. That way you end up with a valid OS to use on mobile devices.

Put more effort into your webbrowser. Make it so that it can be used for any type of application. Don't wait for W3C, if it's up to them we will have to wait till 2019 for a complete HTML5 specification. The other browser developers will either follow, and if not, developers will decide if they make a windows only application. Make the browser the default UI layer of Windows. This time to prevent nasty lawsuits, make it easy for others to add their own navigational toolbar.

So in short, instead of trying to protect business with windows locked in technology, be more open, and out develop the other companies. Become the company again, where it pays off to develop on your platform.

[bad_user]

> @Balmer: Get rid of .NET.

In Q4 2009 the Server and Tools division had a revenue of 3.5 billion, bigger than their Client division, their online services or their entertainment devices.

.NET is one of their best products. It's one of the few reasons developers might develop for Windows Mobile 7. It's the single reason I actually thought about deployment on Windows servers.

With a single platform you can target the web, desktop clients (even clients running on Mac OS X / Linux), rich intranet web apps (Flex-like) or mobile apps (Silverlight has been released for Symbian, WinMo7, MeeGo and probably Android following).

Getting rid of .NET could be the stupidest thing they ever did, and probably the last nail in their coffin.

[BillGoates]

The server and tools revenue doesn't say anything about .NET. I didn't say get rid of SQL server or their server OS.

Compare the popularity of C# + VB.net to other languages to see .NET has less than 1/20th of the market. And that for a company that not so long ago dominated the software market.

.NET is useless for

* desktop applications, since the forward and backward compatibility is not guaranteed.

* Downloadable applications, because a 250mb library pack download is just too much.

* Web Startups and/or social applications, because of the (sql) server costs.

So the only use .NET has is for small corporate applications.

The only thing Silverlight is good for is playing DRM protected media.

[bad_user]

On Window XP the download for .NET 3.5 Client is just ~28Mb for machines with no framework, ~ 40 MB for .NET 4 (again, with no other version) and the web installer is only ~800 KB.

Over 80% (or even 90%) of Windows clients have some version of .NET installed, and since it's being pushed through Windows Update, some stats are reporting .NET 3.5 at more than 60%.

The Windows 7 marketshare is bigger than 10%, which means there are more Windows 7 clients out there then OS X, and I haven't seen OS X developers complaining about a lack of users willing to try out their apps.

> Web Startups and/or social applications, because of the (sql) server costs

Yes, but it really depends on your needs. PlentyOfFish / StackOverflow are doing just fine.

[BillGoates]

Details missing the point. Yes it's possible to use .NET, but Microsoft development tools aren't automatically the best choice anymore, and often even the worst choice.

[gizmomagico]

Don't wait for W3C, if it's up to them we will have to wait till 2019 for a complete HTML5 specification. The other browser developers will either follow, and if not, developers will decide if they make a windows only application.

Wow! Are you actually suggesting they try and hold back the development of the web for another 5-10 years, if they can pull it off?

"Just make everything about websites IE-specific again and we're all good!"

[BillGoates]

No the opposite of holding back. Without MS we wouldn't have AJAX or Rich Text editors at the moment.

I am fully supportive of open standards, but it's rare that companies together can develop one. The year 2019 I mentioned was wrong, the final specification of HTML 5 is planned for 2022. Even after half the spec has thrown out already.

So MS has to go back at what they did best. Embrace and extent. Make the existing specifications work, but add more (useful) functions. Such as 3D, printing documents or a real rich text editor. The other browser developers are already doing such, so if MS wants to stay significant, they will have to do something.

[gizmomagico]

Everyone knows XMLHTTPRequest originated from IE, but does that really matter? It's not like no other company could have come up with anything like that, is it?

No matter when it's deemed "finished", HTML5 is coming along nicely. It feels like you can already start using it a little, and after some time, all browsers that matter (which might not even include IE anymore) will support HTML5 & CSS3 well enough that you can actually use them.

That's really cool, and Microsoft has done absolutely nothing to make that happen - quite the contrary.

They were pretty much refusing to co-operate for as long as possible, naturally, and when they realized that the IT world wasn't going to wait for them anymore, that they had become irrelevant, only then did they actually do something to support standards.

Make the existing specifications work, but add more (useful) functions.

That's not an implementation of a standard anymore. In fact, even the browser-specific way Safari and Firefox have approached CSS3 is really weird - why not just freaking use the names that are going to be used eventually anyway? It makes no sense.

You can't support MS adding their own proprietary shit on top of open standards just because they happened to produce XHR while doing exactly that.

The other browser developers are all coming around to implementing HTML5 and CSS3, and if MS wants to stay in the game, right now they actually have to do the same, as they've apparently realized. If they had the choice, they'd be doing everything in their power to fuck everything up and make the world depend on IE once again - you can count on that.

So please, stop the misguided MS-love.