
Ask HN: Anyone else planning to head back to Microsoft? - jebblue
With Microsoft&#x27;s improvements in how they do business and greatly improved understanding of open source I&#x27;m really starting to think more seriously about heading back into their technology realm for some years and see how it works out.
======
jacquesm
Not a chance. Once bitten twice shy.

Switching to an all-open-source ecosystem did not come without costs but now
that I'm there I'd have to make all those costs again _and_ run the risk of
another repetition.

Open source software is about as stress free as it gets and less stress is a
good thing in my book, a factor they never mention in those 'total cost of
ownership' graphs.

Stuff usually just works, usually works good enough and if it does not you can
change it, it's like building things from clay rather than from blocks that
won't fit together unless they were intended to fit together from day 1 (and
they usually aren't).

You couldn't pay me to switch back to either Microsoft, Apple or any other
closed source software provider and I try very hard to stay away from SAAS
components for much the same reasons.

~~~
raphar
I was bitten too and I'll probably avoid their products & platforms in the
future. What I see very positive from them is the act of contributing back.
Perhaps they are maturing...

Nonetheless, you can be a SOB of a profit and world domination seeking
corporation and embrace open source at the same time. Think Oracle or Google
(and many others).

Also I fear this new wave a little bit more.

------
lsiunsuex
When Windows 10 comes out I'll probably pull the trigger and get a Microsoft
Surface for testing, but I don't think I'll ever leave OS X for Windows.

(to name a few) 1: Recently helped a friend install a new hard drive in a
Lenovo Edge 15 only to find out the laptop has problems with Crucial SSDs (it
brought back to many driver / hardware compatibility issues from my past jobs)

2: Features like Dashboard, Expose, Notifications have become real workflow
time savers in OS X and I've never seen as good implementations in Windows.

3: I've never seen a PC laptop with a touchpad as good as on a Mac

4: the BSD / *nix base of OS X is to valuable to be without

5: Web development tools are just hands down better on OS X - Transmit,
Sublime Text, color pickers, etc... theres just no equivalents on Windows.

6: Handoff in OS X with my iPhone is such a great convenience.

and to many more... I think Apple has lost they're way a bit and really need
to focus on making OS X better; in recent years, iOS has received to much
focus (IMO), but things are fine for now (so long as it doesn't get much
worse)

And I can always throw Windows into a VM or bootcamp - it's much more
difficult to put OS X into a VM on a PC.

~~~
lucb1e
> 3: I've never seen a PC laptop with a touchpad as good as on a Mac

I've customized mine with touchegg (made for GNU/Linux systems) and it does
everything I've seen Mac users do and more. Need no Apple for that one, and
there are probably Windows tools as well though I wouldn't know which.

> 6: Handoff in OS X with my iPhone is such a great convenience.

I don't know what "handoff" is, but regarding interoperability, a rooted
Android phone running GNU tools (e.g. Linux Deploy app) is a dream when you
have a GNU-based laptop/desktop operating system as well. I can browse my
phone like a network drive and getting a shell is as easy as connecting to any
old linux server.

This doesn't make your other points less valid, by the way. There is surely a
good argument to be made for OS X.

~~~
whatisapancake
Handoff lets you continue your current task on another device, from where you
left off (it hands off the task). So if you have a text document open or
you're writing an email on a mac, it will let you continue doing that on an
iphone, with the text you entered on the mac already being there.

You can also make calls or send texts from a mac if your iphone is nearby.

~~~
sciurus
[https://www.apple.com/ios/whats-
new/continuity/](https://www.apple.com/ios/whats-new/continuity/)

------
a2tech
Nope. The Unix underpinnings of OS X are way too valuable for me.

Powershell is (imho) a verbose mess and is the current best attempt at making
a working scripting language for Windows. I use Powershell all the time but
its..inelegant. Give me bash scripting any time.

MS is always flirting with new technologies and sexy R&D, but at their heart
they're never going to change.

~~~
rgacote
Not only the base Unix underpinnings, but the sheer lack of support tools on
Windows vs. Mac is frustrating. \- network problems? just try a quick curl
(not on Windows) \- did a file transfer properly? do a quick md5 hash (not on
Windows) \- need to do some quick data manipulation? write a quick Perl,
Python, or Ruby script (not on Windows) \- connect to one of our remote
servers? bring up terminal and ssh (not on Windows) \- move files around with
sftp (not on Windows) \- remove all files in a directory tree older than 60
days? bring up terminal and do a quick find... -delete. (not on Windows). \-
etc, etc, etc. Yes, all these tools can be installed on Windows, but they are
on every Mac by default.

~~~
stoolio
I have pretty much all of those tools on windows and all I needed to do was
install Git for Windows, which is super easy.

It was a bit more work to set ansicon + Console2/ConsoleZ (although cmder
might be an easier option), but now I can use standard bash scripts and do
most of what I need easy.

In addition, this process was a one time deal. It's not like you have to set
it up each time you want to ssh somewhere.

Why do I really use windows (vs some linux, I have no interest in Mac)?

Play most games (not on Mac or Linux)

Anything else that cygwin can't get me, I have Vagrant and VirtualBox.

Windows isn't that bad.

~~~
jinushaun
Git and Console2 are the first things I install after Chrome on Windows, but
Git Bash only gets you so far. You quickly run into a wall because Git Bash is
not Unix.

Although my opinion of OSX has soured with each new unstable version, it's
hard to give up the Unix underpinning + mainstream app combo (Office and
Creative Suite). PowerShell with Unix aliases aren't the same.

------
untog
I was playing around with a Surface Pro in a store a while back and genuinely
loved it - I can imagine being very happy with a docking station at my desk
that turns it into a full machine and just carrying it around as a tablet the
rest of the time.

Two things hold me back. One is the lack of a POSIX console - I know that
there are some possibilities to bring equivalent functionality to Windows, but
I don't yet know enough about them to know if they're sufficient. The other
much more significant issue is that testing on iOS devices is essential for my
job, and something tells me Apple aren't about to release the iOS Simulator
for Windows.

It's disappointing because when I switched from Windows to OS X (back in 2006
if I recall) it was a giant breath of fresh air - the OS felt so much simpler
and cleaner than XP. But these days it's the reverse - every release of OS X
feels messier and less reliable.

~~~
greggyb
I would suggest playing with Cygwin - I use it all the time for access to Unix
command line tools.

I work exclusively with Microsoft at work (MS Gold Partner consulting firm BI
focused and also app dev). Thus, anything I build for a client or internal use
won't be Unix-based, but I have to do a good amount of ad-hoc text munging and
data transformation (a good number of CSVs and log files in various formats as
data sources) where I can use any tools I need. I appreciate the strength of
Unix tools for this.

------
petercooper
Yes. I'm not about to leave Apple entirely but can see myself placing OS X,
Linux and Windows on even pedestals in 2016. I went into OS X wholesale in
2004 and didn't look back until now. Windows 10 and the new direction they
seem to be taking code-wise (wrt VS, IE/Edge, git & more) is appealing. What's
also appealing is the wider range of hardware. I've bought almost everything
Apple releases and am starting to feel like they really don't care for pro
users or regular buyers, the new MacBook release was such a mess - it's all
about being a mass market media company now.

The main thing that still bugs me about Windows though is the hideous text
rendering (I know it's switchable with hacks, but hopefully 4K will resolve
the default for me).

------
mbrock
I'm idly curious about whether Microsoft will ever "pull an OS X".

In my imagination, they'd drop their whole legacy OS except for an emulation
layer, and port their Windows Store stuff to a new platform.

The new platform, as I imagine it, would be based on Linux and focus primarily
on web apps and games. One part web-based cross-device UI runtime, one part
serious gaming support.

The idea of Microsoft embracing Linux on the desktop is, I think, a popular
April's Fools joke, but from my naïve perspective, it seems like a pretty
reasonable idea.

I thought OS X was really cool in 2006, and since then I've become gradually
more and more annoyed with it. I'm more and more confused by why I need to use
this complicated operating system... I feel like its whole paradigm is dated
and tedious.

Like when I run out of hard drive space. OS X will tell me with some ugly
alert box that "you're out of space." No clue why. I have to download some
external software that can figure this out by scanning my drives. Junk keeps
accumulating in weird folders that I didn't know existed. I feel like I'm
dealing with a huge bureaucracy.

And when I open Finder, for some reason I am presented with a (rather slow)
list of, like, all files, in an intimidating and overwhelming way. Of course I
know how file systems work, but in the shoes of an everyday computer user, the
whole thing is unfriendly and weird.

Then there's the issue of all the overlapping windows that I'm always
fidgeting with, resizing, moving, maximizing and unmaximizing. For some reason
maximizing and unmaximizing feels like an extremely heavy task for the
computer. I don't know why it takes more than a millisecond. It all adds up to
make my user experience annoying and like I have to do unnecessary work.

Not to even mention iTunes and the App Store... Jeez! It's enough to make me
question the whole narrative of technological progress. I think Microsoft
could pretty easily make something convincingly better than all this.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
Said "emulation layer" would basically be Wine. I'm afraid this whole MS-Linux
speculation is just nonsensical, far fetched fantasy.

Dropping Windows entirely is certainly plausible, but they'd probably do it in
favor of the Midori OS their research lab has been working on based on the
managed runtime aspects they've been learning from Singularity.

 _Of course I know how file systems work, but in the shoes of an everyday
computer user, the whole thing is unfriendly and weird._

If you consider this to even be a problem, then switching to Linux will not
help with this. At all. It will only exacerbate it.

~~~
mbrock
Thanks, I didn't know about Midori.

Yeah, it is fantasy. I don't know enough to say whether it's far-fetched. I
don't think it's obviously nonsensical.

Linux of course has tons of advantages. A huge community, lots of hardware
support, open source, etc. Microsoft has been talking about how they "love
Linux." Why wouldn't it be a reasonable base for a new platform? Like how
Apple went with XNU/Mach/BSD?

I'm not really talking about "switching to Linux". I'm talking about building
a new operating system that uses Linux as the underlying kernel. Since it's my
fantasy, I declare that this new operating system has a very clean and well-
organized file manager...

------
robtani
I've already been on the ASP.NET MVC stack for almost 2 years now and haven't
looked back!! The tooling is just EXCELLENT!!! and honestly having used so
many different languages, C# is hands down the best I've used. It just feels
like they cherry picked the best features of all languages and packed it into
C#. And Win8.1 (defaulted to desktop mode) on my new ThinkPad X1 Carbon is
pretty damn good too!

------
romanovcode
I'll get Surface 4 Pro if it'll ship with powerful enough processor and 16
gigs of RAM.

As for developing side, I already switched to C# and am very happy. It's
clean, fast and reliable. LINQ is a beast.

------
JonFish85
I know several people who love the tight integration that Microsoft's tools
have, from the .NET environment (and multiple languages) to their cloud tools
to their database integration. If you buy into their way of doing things, it
seems to be a pretty great work environment all around. Granted none of this
really has anything to do with their "improved understanding of open source"
or "how they do business", so take it for what it's worth (anecdotal
evidence).

------
pmontra
Nope. As long as we keep deploying on Linux there is no point in developing on
Windows. I'm perfectly happy to use Ubuntu as my desktop, most people around
me use Macs. A VM for testing with IE will be enough and there are web
services for that.

With the open sourcing of .NET we're probably going to see .NET applications
running on Linux servers too. So Windows clients get less and less valuable.
Remember that there is also a reduced version of Visual Studio for OS X and
Linux now. Chances are that MS is sacrificing Windows (for developers) to
increase the market share of Azure (Linux servers there).

The general public will keep buying whatever they find at the mall.

(Edit: typos)

~~~
midnitewarrior
Visual Studio Code (for OS X and Linux) are glorified code editors, not full-
blown IDEs. They appear to be well done, and a similar experience to Visual
Studio for editing code, but Visual Studio as an IDE is much more than an
editor.

------
duaneb
Last I checked, running a unix environment was still a difficult experience
without running a VM. That's a deal breaker for a development platform.

Good games, though.

------
Delmania
I maintain a 250 Gb partition on my Mac that's dedicated to Windows. While I
primarily use it for gaming, I also intend to install both Windows 10 and
VS2015 on it. Bootcamp was a key selling point to me for purchasing a Mac when
I was in the market for a new desktop.

~~~
shortstuffsushi
This is actually a really good point, and perhaps one _against_ OSX. I'm not
really a Windows guy, but I can keep a partition with Windows super easily for
the things I do need Windows for. I can't do that from Windows to OSX. That's
not Windows fault, because Apple prevents you from doing so, but if you're on
Windows, you can't (concurrently) run OSX.

~~~
contergan
Well not officially. There are easy workarounds though and I'm running a OSX
VM right now on my Windows box for example.

~~~
shortstuffsushi
Fair enough, I guess I was only referring to "official" channels.

------
BrianEatWorld
I initially read this as returning to work for Microsoft.

I actually never left their tech realm. Even though both my work and home
machine run flavours of Linux, I fell in love with Windows Phone back on WP7
and haven't been able to go back to Android of iOS since. If the integration
between phone and desktop are really as tight as they look to be in Windows
10, I may consider converting my home machine to Windows, but at work running
the same OS on my box as I do in prod is way too valuable.

------
hmans
I built a PC -- my first in ~10 years -- because I want to follow what will be
going on with Windows 10. I won't get rid of my Mac anytime soon, though, but
I do agree with the sentiment that Apple has lost its way in parts. I don't
feel the level of excitement for OS X as a couple of years back.

~~~
kaolinite
I don't think that's Apple losing its way, more just the operating system
having matured. They're still adding some cool features (Continuity being the
latest major new thing) but for the most part, it doesn't change much.

The same is happening on iOS really. It's becoming more and more boring - in a
good way. It's reached a point where it's pretty much complete and now they're
just tweaking bits, adding a few new features as things become possible, etc.

Windows 8, on the other hand, was really exciting - but not in a good way.

------
abrahamepton
No, because every time I interact with something they make, it's a crappy
experience. Documentation is awful. Everything they do is crazy verbose and
feels overengineered and underengineered at the same time, somehow. Windows is
unpleasant to use every single time I dip my toe back into it.

------
ocdtrekkie
I've been flirting with it. I've been a Windows desktop user throughout, but
the big appeal to using their platforms more is that Microsoft always makes
it's "cloud services" features optional, rather than strongarming people into
storing data on their servers.

------
amyjess
I might get a Surface or a Yoga or something to play with, but I'm sticking
with Arch Linux for my actual desktop because it best suits what I do.

------
phatbyte
Not really, if any I would migrate to Linux (Ubuntu). But OSX apps really
spoiled me.

I only use Windows for Steam. Boot, play, logout, hand sanitizer, back to OSX.

I just hate Windows UI, that metro thingy. The explorer and button layout is
just a mess. Buttons with icons, difference sizes.

eg:

[http://media.askvg.com/articles/images3/Windows_8_Explorer_R...](http://media.askvg.com/articles/images3/Windows_8_Explorer_Ribbon.png)

vs

[http://cdn.osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/mac-
os-x-...](http://cdn.osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/mac-os-x-finder-
column-view.JPG)

I really hope windows 10 cleans that mess.

~~~
thawkins
Yep, i have one windows partition on one machine to run steam. My macbook runs
linux, not in a vm, wiped osx off the drive and installed linux in is place.

------
leeleelee
Has anyone gone through the horror of doing things like installing python or
mysql on a windows machine? Maybe it's easier nowadays, but last time I tried
installing python I had to follow multiple tutorials, one of which actually
worked. Installing mysql was a little more pain-free, but still too much work.

Also the lack of a linux/unix/whatever shell in windows? There's no way to
measure the infinite utility in having a shell at your fingertips on a mac. I
use the shell everyday, not sure how anybody could get on without one.

~~~
zokier
I would be really curious to hear what issues you have had installing Python
on Windows? As far as I can remember it has been just clicking through wizard
and nothing more.

~~~
leeleelee
Last time I did was at least several years ago. The experience was terrible
enough that I ran and never came back. To be honest I don't remember what
exactly I had to do, but it wasn't as simple as following an install wizard.
Lot's of little hack-ish type stuff.

------
higherpurpose
Many people have been burned by Microsoft's grandiose promises and biting the
bullet early on. See Kinect, Surface RT adopters, Windows Phone 7 adopters (no
WP8 update), Windows 8 adopters (with the promise of 100,000 apps in the first
90 days), HoloLens which I'm sure will disappoint many after they buy it and
they see it's nothing like what Microsoft showed on stage, and so on.

The best advice is to wait a few years and see if Microsoft is _really_
following through on its promises instead of just buying its hype.

~~~
evilduck
Besides products that get killed, Microsoft has a decades long history of
documented bad behavior in every arena they operate in. I'm not about to
reverse my distrust of them this quickly. I'm open to changing my opinion, but
as of _today_ , this feels like an abused spouse asking their friends to
forgive their abuser because of an empty promise and a relatively short term
change of behavior. No. If they can keep up the good work for like 5 or 10
years, then maybe the ship has really turned around, but right now this feels
like a company feeling irrelevant doing anything they can to bring attention
back on themselves.

edit: Thanks for the downvotes on a Ask HN.

~~~
midnitewarrior
There's a really good chance this is a "new" Microsoft. Gates and Ballmer were
the "old school" Microsoft that only thought that obstructing the competition
was the best path to success. The new CEO Satya Nadela built the Azure
platform, the most "open" technology that Microsoft has. His mantra is "mobile
first, cloud first". This outlook is the opposite of Ballmer's, which was to
drive everybody back to Windows.

Microsoft is now a multi-device, multi-technology company that is focused on
getting their software and services on as many platforms as possible. The
cloud and their services are their future, if they cannot make the transition
to interoperability, they will collapse. Prior to this, Microsoft was
structured in such a way that everything depended on their OS, so Microsoft
declared war on OS/2, Linux and MacOS.

Windows sold Office, and Office and NT sold the enterprise market.

Now, any platform sells office, mobile and desktop. Windows sells Microsoft's
cloud services like OneDrive and Office 365, but so does OS X now. NT drove
enterprise revenues, but now it's Windows Azure running Linux or Windows,
either way Microsoft makes money in hosting it. For consumers, Windows
licenses were a cash cow for Microsoft, but Apple has set the price of
Operating Systems to $0 with their upgrade policy, now Microsoft is following
with free Windows 10 licenses for a year. My guess is that they will bundle
Windows licensing as a service that gives you access to Office , XBOX Live and
other Microsoft properties, so it will is less of a Windows license and more
of a Microsoft Experience license. Either way, if you use Microsoft's services
on any platform, Microsoft will still earn their revenue.

To sum that up, Microsoft's interests are no longer in opposition to the rest
of the computing market, it is in alignment with it due to their multi-
platform strategy. They are in a position to more easily do things to earn
your trust, as those things will also add to their revenues.

~~~
evilduck
Ok... but we've seen this new, better Microsoft behavior for like 2 or 3 years
while they've been in a pretty down or leveled position after a history of bad
behavior dating back to basically their inception. Have they genuinely changed
or are they just being forced by their new market positions to behave better?
None of your examples point to a MS doing things for the right reasons and
trying to regain trust, they point to a MS that ran out of options. I don't
trust a dog to not run away while he's locked in a kennel, I trust him to not
run away because _he has no choice_.

What happens if they gain a dominant or monopoly position in something again,
are we just supposed to trust that they won't behave badly once their market
pressure is gone? A new CEO and a company the size of MS won't magically
change their company culture overnight (especially with a CEO who was
previously a longstanding MS employee who participated in past wrongdoings).
Rebuilding trust takes more time than this.

~~~
midnitewarrior
Well, I said they are in a better position to do the things to earn your
trust, I didn't say you should necessarily have it yet.

Microsoft picked Satya because they were backed into a corner, but everything
I've seen from this man tells me he's the real deal and believes that a multi-
platform strategy is the right then and the best way to earn revenue. However,
as with any company, expect them to have a bias towards things that will make
them the most money. At the present time and the foreseeable future, for me,
it appears that the interests of Microsoft are in alignment with the interests
of users of all platforms.

If they gain the dominant or monopoly position in something again...what would
that be, and in what decade do you suggest it will happen? If holographic
computing somehow takes off, that appears to be the only place where they are
positioned to lead a market in the near future.

If it's a question of Apple or Microsoft, Microsoft appears to be the good guy
these days, as Apple is still building their walled garden. Microsoft is being
a major contributor to Open Source code though. Everything on the new
Microsoft stack is getting open sourced as quickly as possible. They make the
best commercial software tool in the world for making software (Visual
Studio), and it is particularly adept at deploying .NET software, so they are
opening that up to the world to get .NET in as many places as people want it.
They are also opening up Visual Studio to a variety of languages, and making
it a development tool for cross platform development for iOS and Android. They
want to sell Visual Studio.

Trust takes time though. Keep your eye on them and compare Microsoft to their
peers, you may be surprised by what you see.

------
stratigos
nope, cant say ill ever trust a corporation like Microsoft to do my thinking
for me, i doubt theyll ever outlive their legacy for being the mcdonalds of
software, and i really cant ever imagine software development being better in
any Microsoft environment that it is in a linux environment.

~~~
gambiting
Well, I haven't found anything as good as Visual Studio on either Mac or
Linux. I work at a games studio and everyone works on Windows. Back when I was
a CS student I would swear by Linux for development,but nowadays I would
rather not bother - everything just works for us on Windows.

~~~
thawkins
Anything by Jetbrains, i use phpstorm and clion.

------
SanderMak
I'll happily use their open-source tech if it is compelling (e.g. TypeScript).
That doesn't make me want to leave OSX as dev platform though.

------
zcdziura
Once Windows 10 is released, I'll be clearing out my HDD and upgrading. While
my "main OS" is Elementary, I still have a partition available for Windows so
I can play games with my friends. And if the future Surfaces are as pleasant
to use as the Surface 3 is, I may save my pennies and buy one. We'll see.

------
KaiserPro
THe one killer product that microsoft still do is AD.

I'm 100% linux, however if I ever want to do any sort of centralised user
database, AD is the key product I'd use.

Unlike most other things, it just works. It's also really simple to integrate
with OSX and linux (assuming you bind directly with SSSD, and don't do any
silly translation.)

------
digitalsushi
I always try to keep a few fingers dipped into a current Microsoft system. I'm
not a 10xer, my value to a company is in being able to communicate with my
coworkers, smooth edges, give ideas, et cetera. The better I can understand
what other people are working with, the more valuable I can be. I'm not a
"windows person" but I am still able to get around because I can bring my
unixy debugging stuff as a general technique.

Knowing some Windows is basically like trying to stay current with which
"sports" are being played - my coworkers know I'm not really into either, but
being able to follow along reduces the impedance mismatch significantly.

------
w0rmwood
I only use Windows for gaming and it's going to stay that way unless OS X
completely drives me away. Each person's preference is different when it comes
to OS, and I am not loyal to any (have used Win/Mac/Linux and they all have
their strong points). When it comes to day-to-day use, though, I prefer Mac OS
by a long shot. I just prefer the aesthetic, apps, and other small things it
offers vs. other platforms. It's not necessarily "better" it just fits my
preferences more than any other OS.

------
dec0dedab0de
No. I don't play games, and I don't use any high end platform specific
software, so I have no reason to even consider it. Also, the thought of using
Windows again makes me cringe.

------
sarciszewski
I'm forced to use Windows for the moment, and even with their current change
in direction, I'm still headed towards full-time GNU/Linux as soon as
possible.

------
leap_ahead
Never left them in the first place. Great products actually.

Also lots of hardware available, everything is upgradeable. Not like MBP with
soldered RAM, soldered SSD, weak ventilation system, no LAN and just 2 USB
ports. Can buy a laptop or assemble your own desktop workstation.

Linux I don't know. It still looks ugly and no great apps available for it.
Visual Studio for Linux? Adobe tools for Linux? Of course not. Just amateur
toys and fonts with ragged edges. Thanks but no thanks.

------
bobm
What puzzles me is that MS refuses to get away from the OS in many many
versions: Home, Pro, Enterprise, Education, Mobile and Mobile Enterprise. You
would think that they would have copied Apple on OS and Server and be done
with it.

source:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10#Editions_and_pricing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10#Editions_and_pricing)

~~~
chinpokomon
Most people only need Home. That changes when you need to log into an Active
Directory, but suffices for most personal use. This differentiation allows
Microsoft to sell two different SKUs and makes Windows more cost effective for
90% of households. For most users, the question will be Home or Pro. It also
shouldn't be a surprise that for the last several years you can buy a Pro Pack
for Home that will upgrade your system to the Pro SKU for about the same cost
as the difference between Home and Pro.

If you need one of the other SKUs, they are special circumstances and you
probably already know which version you need, and you also will be getting
those licenses through non-retail channels.

------
nogridbag
I may pick up the next iteration of the Surface with Windows 10 once it's
released. I may also install the Windows 10 beta on an old laptop...

------
dragonwriter
> With Microsoft's improvements in how they do business and greatly improved
> understanding of open source I'm really starting to think more seriously
> about heading back into their technology realm for some years and see how it
> works out.

I never completely left it, especially not at <dayjob>, but I certainly feel
more _interested_ in it then I have for a while.

------
cpursley
No matter how great Windows becomes, until there's a machine with a trackpad
on par with the Macbook, I won't be switching.

------
rcurry
I'm already there. Considering the moves MSFT is making towards open source, I
think their future is a lot brighter than a lot of people might think. We
could very well see a total renaissance for the .NET stack, with MSFT
ultimately delivering cross-platform development tools that will run on Linux
just as well as they run on Windows.

------
zorked
No the best UI. Not Unix. Not a major mobile platform. Dominates a huge but
dying market. Why would you do that?

~~~
jebblue
I always over time consider options, Microsoft doesn't have Gates running it
any more so maybe they really are turning over a new leaf. It was heavy on my
mind this week and lead to the question, not making any hasty moves.

~~~
chinpokomon
Gates hasn't been at the helm for a decade as he's been working on his
foundation ... until recently -- now Gates is actually back but not running
things. I think you meant Balmer.

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djloche
Over the next year, I'll be switching to a 2015/2016 Surface Pro with windows
10 and a desktop tower dual booting win10 and ubuntu. If necessary, I'll
continue to buy second hand Apple laptops for iOS development.

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zzzeek
enjoy powershell

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lingua_franca
no matter how hard they try, it's still a Microsoft vs Sillicon Valley fight.
very few ppl will bet on Microsoft.

~~~
M8
Who developed the language Angular 2 will be using?

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serve_yay
Nope :)

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appleiszebest
on it its so much fun on sp3

