I don't think of IT as an outlier here because every IT department I've dealt with for a long while either contains programmers (usually in small/medium sized companies) or works closely with groups of programmers to keep their apps running. That's what I call devops, maybe I have the wrong definition though.
The argument about Ajax coming from Microsoft is a bit shallow. (Sorry that's all the effort I felt like putting into it at the moment.) Here are a couple other thoughts along the same vein:
1. Microsoft has done extensive research into many areas of tech that are just now blooming, such as mobile and tablet computing. They had a general purpose mobile OS with multiple third party app-stores before any of the modern industry players. They had tablets. I think the industry caught up to Microsoft while they were busy making money elsewhere.
2. Look how quickly Microsoft can pivot into doing the kinds of things that Amazon AWS, Google and Apple are doing. I think it's a testament to how "there" their platform is already.
> ...closed has a very large downside...
It can be a huge upside too. Developers have been making lots of money off of tightly controlled, closed software platforms like iOS and Windows for a long time.
The web is the only completely free open source "platform" that I can think of that is a huge hit with programmers and that people generally use. However, in my opinion - programming it sucks compared to the closed, native systems.
The argument about Ajax coming from Microsoft is a bit shallow. (Sorry that's all the effort I felt like putting into it at the moment.) Here are a couple other thoughts along the same vein:
1. Microsoft has done extensive research into many areas of tech that are just now blooming, such as mobile and tablet computing. They had a general purpose mobile OS with multiple third party app-stores before any of the modern industry players. They had tablets. I think the industry caught up to Microsoft while they were busy making money elsewhere.
2. Look how quickly Microsoft can pivot into doing the kinds of things that Amazon AWS, Google and Apple are doing. I think it's a testament to how "there" their platform is already.
> ...closed has a very large downside...
It can be a huge upside too. Developers have been making lots of money off of tightly controlled, closed software platforms like iOS and Windows for a long time.
The web is the only completely free open source "platform" that I can think of that is a huge hit with programmers and that people generally use. However, in my opinion - programming it sucks compared to the closed, native systems.