[reidrac]

It's more than that... even if you want to use it, you may not be able to do it.

See: http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software

Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

Windows IoT requires Visual Studio and Windows (eg, Windows Remote Arduino is a WinRT component).

If this was about interacting with a Windows phone from any of the development platforms Arduino supports, that would be different I guess. The way this is designed looks divisive and it doesn't follow Arduino open philosophy.

This helps Microsoft to attract Arduino users, but I'm not sure if it will help Arduino as community. When you find a sketch or a library I have never seen a "Windows only" or software requirements besides the Arduino IDE or other libraries.

It doesn't look too different from the "Arduino Certified" program, as in "open source" is not a requirement; but I can understand all the negative comments.

[seanmcdirmid]

Give it some time. Visual studio isn't exactly a cross platform app, and Microsoft doesn't have another tool platform to build off of. The release of Code today is interesting in that regard.