ever since the birth of the 8086 and the IBM ps/2 microsoft has grown to be an indespensable player in the software industry. for both ethusiasts and hobyists alike the platform of software development has witness a meteoring change from COM down to .Net and the Whidbey project (Visual Studio 2005). As these technologies improve ive come to realize that microsoft has taken us on a journey, for developers that have been here on the microsoft path for a while would agree that it has been quite a journey. and as i come to realize the path it thus brings more clearity to the vision of microsoft.

from API's to activeX to distributed computing to COM, the .net frame work and now vs2005 and notably the microsoft robotics framework-intended to get developers closer to custom hardware. All this reveals the path to glory for microsoft developers as it marks the birth of wide spread OEM(Original Equioment Manufacturing) industries. The question is, is microsoft making technology open standard rather than open source? which of these do we actually need here in the third world like they say? ill comment more on this as the thread goes on and would love to know what you guys think

Dag
Microsoft Evangelist

we need open source not open standard. The way windows is going, shows they don't care about 3rd world countries(vista's Eula) but glory be to God for open source. How many people do u think can afford $300 just for an os? problems are more easily&quickly corrected in open source. But i still give qudos to microsoft for .Net but personally am no longer a fan am open source(i love linux)

open source is good for server side networking technology in support of interoperability and seamless integration, and Microsoft has recently released its source code for server side technology, though it goes with a token but its a step in the right direction. but the question is how much can you as a developer use these open standard techniques as exposed by linux and its flock. For the developer interested in programming against a buisness model using standards based coding technique (Dubbed Patterns and Practice) by microsoft, wouldnt it be appropriate to have an open standard that tells you like a standards code will the best way possible to solve a problem and make profits? Are we trying to reinvent the wheel when we are suppose to be making good race tyres. still an advocate of open standard.

share your thoughts

and how effective is this standard? do you consider windows xp standard as compared to it open source counter parts?, what end users need is stability only if windows was open source not even the likes of linux would be able to stand up to it. and please linux integrates very well not only on the server but on the desktop also try ubuntu and see how it integrates easily