I used to be a big Microsoft fan, but I have been in the software industry for many years and guess what is making me a big open source fan: Microsoft. Why? Our software was making use of Microsoft's Windows Media Encoder 9 Series to allow our users to record movies and send them in for troubleshooting assistance. Microsoft has simply stopped supporting this and replaced it with Expression Encoder 4 which does not seem to expose any such suitable interfaces. So now I have to find another solution. Also, I know that their VBA support/development has been sold to a third party. So I can see the end of its lifespan. And then they have an add against OpenOffice about macro support and reliability. Our software also makes use of the OLEDB interface to JET. But there is apparently no 64-bit version of that (other than one that was released as part of some Office versions) because Microsoft wants to encourage the use of SQL Server. Experiences such as these make me very wary of SilverLight and DOT NET and reluctant to develop against them. Yes I know we have no real choice about DOT NET, but keep in mind that it has pieces that are propitiatory to Microsoft. That just makes me think of Microsoft's "embrace, extend and extinguish" policy (look it up on Wikipedia).

modified on Monday, December 20, 2010 6:13 PM