
Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups? - sentinel
Since I've been a user of HN, I've seen numerous posts and stories about (successful) start-ups.<p>However, most of those I have seen are based on some open-source, free or otherwise non-MS based languages, technologies and products. For example, there are a lot of web apps running on Ruby, Python or PHP, using cloud services offered by Amazon, Heroku or Google App Engine, using open source databases, and a lot of mobile applications aimed at iPhone/Android (although, it's true, MS has no real mobile edge anymore), etc.<p>The thing is I don't really hear (or think) of Microsoft when I hear about start-ups. No start-up comes up and says it's using MS SQL Server, or Microsoft Cloud Services...or C#.<p>What's the deal with this? Is it just me, or is it true? Are there any start-ups that do use Microsoft products or languages? Any example cases?<p>If this is true, how dangerous would this be in the long term for Microsoft? And what recommendations would there be for people proficient with MS, but who want to begin a start-up.<p>I'm curious about what you think. Cheers!<p>TL;DR: I don't hear of any MS based start-ups. Why?
======
benologist
I use an almost entirely MS stack for my analytics platform:
<http://www.swfstats.com/>

It's a number of applications ranging from windows services to command line
utils and websites. Using .NET I'm able to do all of that in C# and not have
to switch mindsets when I jump back and forth between all the different facets
of it. I can also easily re-use code/classes between distinct applications.

These days I can be found in just about every major Flash game that's coming
out. In total I run on 2x dedicated and 1x vps, however I've been working my
ass off on making things massively more efficient and could easily reduce my
hosting.

Some fun stats:

\- I do about 130 - 150 million events per day

\- the biggest game by views = 30 million

\- the biggest game by total events = 2.27 billion events

\- I lag about 4 or 5 minutes behind real time

\- I spend more on coffee then I do on licenses on my servers

Open source I'm using:

\- MongoDB for my (alpha) level sharing API + an open source C# library for
using it

\- ClamWin

\- FileZilla

\- an open source C# markdown library

\- an open source C# geoip library

~~~
johns
Which Mongo lib are you using?

~~~
benologist
This one: <http://github.com/samus/mongodb-csharp>

~~~
johns
Have you looked at NoRM?

~~~
benologist
I just grabbed the first driver and it worked although it feels really awkward
to me (especially coming from years of parameterized queries / sprocs).

It looks interesting though. Have you used both?

~~~
johns
I've only tried NoRM and I liked it. I liked that they were working on full
LINQ support, but I'm not sure where that ended up since Conery no longer
contributes to the project and that was his thing.

~~~
robconery
Well - it's Andrew's thing... I just helped out as I could. Just ran out of
time :)

------
kogir
Loopt is based on Microsoft's technology stack. We use:

Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008 R2, IIS 7, C#, ASP.Net MVC 2, WCF,
AppFabric and more. We also use Ubuntu, Apache, PostGRE SQL, and many other
open source technologies and libraries.

I'd imagine most people don't use Microsoft's offerings because they're
expensive (but affordable with volume licensing). They're also rarely on the
bleeding edge, but sometimes that's a good thing. They offer some things you
can't easily get with open source offerings, like:

SQL Server: Mirroring, Transparent Data Encryption, Spatial, Partitioned
Indexed Views, and Full Text Search (all in one offering)

IIS 7: Ability to host transport independent services. That means the same
code can be accessed over TCP, HTTP, MSMQ, or custom protocols you write
yourself, and all be monitored and managed (lifecycle, health, etc) from one
place. The closest open source offering I've heard of is Mongrel 2 (which
looks awesome).

And so far, I've only encountered one bug that's affected our production code.
It's really quality stuff that just works.

------
kenjackson
Well there tend to be two classes of startups. There are the YC-like startups.
Which I think are often college grads or recent college grads. College
students are generally familiar with open source software. I certainly never
touched MS software in college.

The other class of startups are those by relatively successful people who left
their current job to start a company. More of the Spolsky model. Here you'll
find a lot more MS-based stacks. Usually because they're familiar with it and
with BizSpark the upfront cost is relatively cheap.

Of course these startups probably have different funding models, so you hear
about them less on places like TechCrunch. Lastly, they are often more
enterprise focused as their experience in industry has given them the ability
to see gaps in the enterprise offerings (college students don't do enterprise
focused startups) -- but they aren't exciting consumer technologies. But a
companies like Topaz Bridge are still doing some interesting stuff.

~~~
toast76
I think this is probably fairly accurate.

People will (generally) use whatever tool they're familiar with, regardless of
whether it is actually better for the job or not. Therefore it makes sense
that the person's background will be a fairly large determining factor in what
language they use. Someone (like me) that comes from a decade of developing
"enterprise" .NET applications is most likely going to choose .NET. Someone
with that same background is likely to be less concerned about the latest
"cool" tech, and more interested in just getting the job done.

It also has a fair bit to do with resources. If you're running on little cash,
it makes sense to use the cheapest tools and hosting available. Whilst, MS
offer free version of all their tools, you still need to pay for hosting your
app. That's the big turn off for many.

For us, it is a combination of my .NET experience, the fact that hosting price
isn't a huge issue (our web design and .NET consultancy work covers our
costs), and most importantly I DESPISE Linux with a passion. Queue here to
flame me -->

------
Zak
I don't hear of many startups using Oracle, IBM mainframes or proprietary Unix
either. I think there is a general aversion among startups to using expensive
technology, and I think the reasons are fairly obvious.

If you're interested in the startup world, learn another software stack or
three. Startups generally need people who learn new things quickly and use the
best tool for the job. Flexibility is key; don't be a one-trick pony.

~~~
mahmud
I actually heard of a "green energy" startup that listed Oracle and Crystal
Reports as a requirement. It was one of those grotesque things started by
lawyers and energy veterans.

I usually latch on to people with extensive domain expertise outside of
computing, just to see where things might lead, but that particular one felt
very FAILy and the people too unreachable and bureaucratic (i.e. "fax the
requirements to my office and I will tell the _girl_ to embed them inside the
spreadsheet" -- horrible.)

------
daleharvey
stackoverflow is a startup based on microsoft tech, jeff atwood has had
various posts which I cant seem to find right now, sometimes complaining about
the cost of licenses, sometimes giving microsoft props

I avoid the microsoft stack because I believe in the massive advantages open
source brings, and because its better (imho).

------
evo_9
I think it's just 'fashionable' to not talk about your tech if you're using
microsoft tools (aka .net framework). Mainly it seems that HN is very pro
anything else. I'm actually the lead for 2 Denver start-ups myself (also a
BizSpark member); I'm building everything on the back-end in c#/sql and using
web-services to consume the data in my web and mobile apps. For me it's just a
speed issue since I have 10 years C# experience and a ton of code to leverage.
Plus if you get into BizSpark (which seems automatic if you are a HN member)
you receive a free MSDN subscription which includes full copies of SQL, Visual
Studio, Windows 7, Office, etc, so the 'cost' is really a non-factor.

~~~
pg
I don't think it's just a matter of fashion. Only a handful of the startups
we've funded use anything from Microsoft.

~~~
AmberShah
That doesn't discount the idea of fashion. YC attracts a certain crowd of
applicants that tend to be younger and more closely tied into the emergent
technology trends. If they have the time to take X months off of their jobs
and their families, they also probably have time to learn new technologies
that they didn't use in school or at work. I'm young enough but with a busy
full time job and a toddler, learning new technologies (to the point of
extreme proficiency) is not high on my list.

For me it came down to what I could build most rapidly given my skillset. I
had experience in Java and C#/.NET and my partner (my husband, not my co-
founder) could mostly only help in C#/.NET. So it really was a question of
getting something built in 3 months versus 6 (or maybe not at all if I got
discouraged and it took too long to market). The licensing fees are the things
that weigh on my mind, but if my business is successful, I will be able to pay
them or even re-write the application using the profits.

I know better than to expect to converse about our MS technology with the HN
crowd, though.

~~~
pg
I think you misunderstood me. evo_ is saying that it's unfashionable to _talk_
about it when you use Microsoft software. I replied that in my experience the
reason startups don't talk about Microsoft stuff is that they're not using it,
not that they are and are embarrassed to say so.

It may well be that YC-funded startups consistently differ from the average
startup. But that doesn't mean that such differences are due to fashion. The
kind of people we fund are more consistent in knowing what they're doing than
in being young. So if as a group they differ from the norm on technical
matters, the more likely hypothesis is that the norm is lagging.

~~~
AmberShah
I would think that the majority of startups aren't using MS products, but I
understand that the ones that are might prefer not to talk about it for fear
of ridicule by the hacker community.

I'm comfortable assuming that the YC startups are above the average, but that
doesn't mean they aren't also affected by the demographic that would most
benefit and be able to participate in the YC program. In no way am I implying
that YC would select someone younger for admission over someone more qualified
- just that the nature of the program self-selects.

In my case, I'm still young but having a toddler puts me in a similar
situation to a typical older entrepreneur. It would be incredibly difficult
for me to take an X month block away from my family or to uproot my family.
And a $10K investment doesn't mean to me what it does to a college grad,
because I can make that in a couple of bonuses or consulting gigs. The thing I
miss most in a program like YC is the mentorship, but for me it's not worth
the aforementioned hardship.

It's not that I'm not interested in new technologies, I do tinker, but it's
just a matter of priorities. Given that, you're probably right that the "norm"
would be lagging in terms of using the newest and coolest technology. I don't
think that equates to generally worse companies, just less fashionable, to tie
back to the original point.

------
robertg
My startup is a BizSpark startup <http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark> so we're
going to get tied up in the Microsoft stack pretty quickly.

We just started a few months back and are working on our first project.

I really like developing in .NET so this was a no brainer for me. Other people
would disagree with me and want to focus on open source.

Different strokes for different folks I suppose.

Even with BizSpark the point of entry for open source sartups is much lower
which probably accounts for most of it.

Either way, you can be successful and profitable with both, it's just a matter
of finding what works for you.

~~~
1010011010
How much do you worry about Microsoft lock-in? And about them discontinuing
tools you depend on?

~~~
robertg
Well, I'm not worried about Microsoft lock-in because I am consciously
choosing to get locked in to the MS stack. I want to develop with MS tools on
MS systems.

With an MSDN subscription (which is free for me for 3 years through BizSpark)
you can download virtually any MS software ever released. I'd be really
surprised if they didn't have what you need.

I'd be more worried about a company like Oracle buying out a product like Java
and screwing it up. At least you know where Microsoft stands.

------
rbranson
The paid/free argument isn't really a valid basis for business decisions.
Developing software is extremely expensive, even using free software. However,
there are numerous overriding benefits of open source software.

#1: Startup founders use technology they know. Open source developers tend to
be willing to trade more risk and effort for a more tailored and flexible end
product. This is a similar personality profile to someone who's willing to put
in a large amount of work to build a business and potentially get nothing for
it. Microsoft builds run-of-the-mill, sure-thing products that will at least
do something well, and they'll support it for you. Commercial software
dictates their software model: take few risks and sell to broadest audience.

#2: Interoperability. Microsoft software works outstandingly well with other
Microsoft software. Open source software tends to be built on open standards,
and, again, if you have the source, it's always possible to hack it together.
The open nature means less business risk when making software decisions. The
way out is of a situation where software won't do what you need it to do is to
use the source, even if only as a temporary patch.

#3: Automation. While things are getting better, it's still much easier to
automate most open source software, since these products usually either have a
CLI, an API, or even in the worst case scenario: source code.

#4: Even with BizSpark, licensing has limits on your companies' use of
technology. Simple example: Do we go with a bunch of small boxes or a few
large boxes? Licensing concern may drive your team to fundamentally flawed
architecture decisions.

~~~
ratsbane
Good point with #4. The last time I was involved in a Microsoft project the
SQL Server licensing costs were more than $30k per box. $30k was not a big
deal on that project but it would have worked a lot better if the data had
been spread across a bunch of little servers instead of two big ones. $30k * 2
is not so much; $30k * 50 starts to add up.

<http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/pricing.aspx>

------
fleitz
It's just not trendy and the release cycle is very long compared to open
source. The long release cycle contributes to the tech side being less
newsworthy. Also, the stack is fairly standardized so if you are making a
website your stack is going to be either ASP.NET or ASP.NET MVC and it's going
to run on the sanctioned VM, and you'll likely be running SQL Server.

Contrast this with the ruby stack you might be running MRI, YARV, Rubinius for
your VM, and then for your web framework you might be running rack, sinatra,
etc. Thus when someone makes their stack OpenBSD + YARV + Sinatra + Active
Record it's newsworthy as the non-standardization likely created some kind of
interesting issue they needed to solve. This stuff doesn't happen on the MSFT
side of things. If someone says they are doing a MSFT start up the only real
question about their stack is LINQ-to-SQL / ADO.NET entities / nhibernate. I
already know that the rest of their stack is going to be Win2k(3|8)R2 + IIS +
ASP.NET + SQL Server and it's going to be written in C#.

I was considering doing an Win2k8R2/F#/MVC/nhaml/LINQ-TO-SQL start up but my
market isn't tech guys so any blogging I did about my unique stack would
attract people who wouldn't be interested in the startup.

~~~
abrudtkuhl
I must take this opportunity to note that the ASP.Net MVC release cycle is far
more aggressive than Rails.

Secondly... SQL Server is by no means required in the stack. We are using
MongoDB as our datasource in an ASP.Net MVC app. You can use ANY database.

~~~
evo_9
Yeah that's a good point that I think non-.Net dev's aren't aware of - you
really aren't that locked into doing it the 'MS Way'. Like you mentioned you
don't have to use SQL - it's up to you, really, on the DB.

Similarly, you don't have to use ASPX/WebForms either; a lot of people I know
are switching to MVC and not using any of the .net ms usercontrols on the
front-end, instead going with open standards and using something like jQuery
to handle a lot of the UI and web-service interaction. This is the approach
I've taken in recent years, and it makes it a ton easier to create clients for
other platforms like iPhone, Droid, etc.

~~~
abrudtkuhl
Yeah on that note you can use ANY view engine to run your ASP.Net MVC
application - you are not locked in to the classic web forms system. We use
jQuery and standards based html/css to do everything.

------
byoung2
For a lot of startups, I would assume that free is better than paid. Even for
those willing to pay for Microsoft products, the pricing is confusing:
<http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/pricing.aspx>
[http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/pricing.asp...](http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/pricing.aspx)

I have also found Windows programmers on average to be more expensive than
LAMP developers, which is an important concern as you look to build a
startup's team.

I'm not so much concerned with vendor lock-in so much as I would be concerned
with the support of an open source community. The free resources and tools
available for PHP, Python, Ruby, etc., are hard to beat. I'm not sure if the
same breadth of resources exist for Windows.

------
jeremymcanally
The licensing costs are somewhat hefty upfront and get exponentially so as
your business grows. So the decision (I think) isn't necessarily "Oh it's free
now let's do it," it's closer to "OK, this is costly now, and may be worth it
now, but down the road, as we scale in people and the app in size, the money
isn't justifiable."

~~~
gaius
With BizSpark the upfront costs are negligible.

------
duck
After spending almost 20 hours on the phone with Microsoft support last week I
can tell you why I wouldn't use it as my technology stack - you can't dig in
to understand and fix a lot of things yourself.

~~~
johns
At least you had someone to call. Not everything in OSS can be fixed with a
fork and patch.

~~~
fragmede
If it's a software problem a fork and a patch _can_ fix it. That's kind of the
point.

Having the ability and technical resources necessary to generate said patch,
however, is a different problem.

------
drawkbox
Going away from MS platforms by startups is due to cost and quality (of
developers).

Annoyances with the latest MS Platforms:

\- Nasty URLs (capped, trailing file types) - although it can be done with
IIS7 routes or preferrably IIRF which runs IIS5-current. They still dont' have
a mod_rewrite solution unless you run server 2008 with IIS7. Look at how nasty
this looks: <http://www.ferrari.com/Italian/Pages/Home.aspx>, why not just
<http://ferrari.com/>? The reason, their frameworks suck defaulting to path
cruft, file extensions and capitalized urls.

\- ASP.NET WebForms single-form per page travesty.

\- Again, File naming and the ASP.NET MVC again relies on their capitalized
URL paths and .aspx extensions everywhere.

\- XML and SOAP crazy over RESTful/JSON based services (they tried to remedy
this with WCF but configuration failed)

\- All MS developers are not free thinkers much, they use whatever MS tells
them to use from LINQ, MS SQL Server, Sharepoint etc. Even such things as
using JSON, jQuery and Entities they didn't use until Microsoft had the
frameworks then all of a sudden they loved them. I kid you not most people
still used the Microsoft AJAX framework until 2008ish.

\- VB.NET

\- DataSets just clutter all applications

\- MS seems to have lost the skill to make simplified engineering solutions
(sure their tools are simple but they are overly configuration nightmares or
lock in by requiring the tool otherwise it is painful).

\- All good .net developers when they become engineers or entrepreneurs
typically leave the platform for cost and better solutions. MS seems to
attract mediocre or enterprisey programmers like Java (this could be due to
the popularity of both platforms attracting more developers overall)

\- Sharepoint kills developers dreams.

You can do .NET like modern web development but for the most part the
developers in the MS culture don't.

~~~
Aaronontheweb
This is a load of shit.

1\. ASP.NET MVC2, which is what they're trying to replace Webforms with,
doesn't have any URL mangling issues given that the pathing is determined
entirely by the developer's architecture.

2\. Yeah, a view needs to contain a .ASPX file - this is an issue because?

3\. You can't figure out how to edit some basic configuration settings,
therefore the technology failed? Having consumed more than my fair share of
RESTful services using .NET (the vast majority of my code samples on my blog
are about using tools to do that), let me tell you that LINQ-to-XML and LINQ-
to-JSON (JSON.NET) blow every other tool out of the water when it comes to
parsing responses, with the exception of RestSharp, which is even better.

4\. What the hell kind of bullshit is this? Because Microsoft offers me tools
that integrate and often come with things I've already purchased I'm somehow a
blind code-monkey slave to them? And there are plenty of developers who hated
the .NET AJAX Control library and used jQuery or something else, myself among
them. Microsoft isn't perfect, and there are exciting new non-.NET
technologies out there that a lot of .NET devs try. Ask Rob Conery about his
experience with Ruby, which I think is now his primary platform.

5.And what's wrong with VB.NET? That's how I broke into .NET until I did C++
programming in school and switched to C#. Yeah it's a verbose language
compared to C# and it lets you play fast-and-loose with typing, but the fact
that it's different from other tools doesn't make it inherently bad.

6\. If you use DataSets poorly than I suppose that's true, just like how you
can clutter PHP with inline MySQL. Shitty code can be written in any language.

7\. What? You mean like one-click deployment from Visual Studio to an IIS7
instance? Or the ability to easily setup mirrors and scheduled backups in SQL
Server? Or the ability to host services with virtually any protocol in IIS7?
Try doing any of that in the LAMP stack and then feel free to tell me about
how MSFT can't develop "simplified engineering solutions."

8\. Some definitely do, but "all good devs?" Bullshit. Ask Jeff Atwood. The
idea that enterprise platforms attracts more medicore programmers is
laughable, and I'll point to the fact that JAVA and .NET developers are paid
more by the free market on average than any other type of developer as
evidence of that. You don't get paid well if you do shit work.

9\. SharePoint is an utter POS; I hate using it as an end user, and I will be
a sad panda the day I have to develop for it. No contest there.

~~~
drawkbox
OK I was going to delete my response just so I didn't have to do this but here
we go. Let me first just say I did .NET since 2001 first beta and for 8+ years
after that. I bailed mentally to other frameworks around 2005 while in SOAP
hell. I do primarily Python frameworks, Ruby or PHP but still do some .NET
mainly Mono. I really like C# but disagree with the direction of most
Microsoft culture decisions. I was MCSD in C++, C# (first 5000) and was an
advocate of the platform from 2001-2005. So this is coming from a .NET dev.

1\. Yes it does. It defaults all models, views, routes to capitalized names
like CustomerProduct rather than customer-product which is much better for
urls and keywords. You even have many lower level .NET dude with /Member in
all their urls because they can't abstract away from the physical folder
hierarchy.

2\. Everything should be ashx or handler based like a good framework, if you
need a view you call in the view or template handler like every other
framework. Microsoft wires it to aspx pages by default which the Page model is
bulky if not needed such as for a REST endpoint.

3\. Yes I can. Everyone else if you have worked on a multi-year project in
.NET of any scale you will know this configuration hell I am talking about. It
is the one that Java has been in for some time. btw I agree on JSON.NET there
should be more simplified frameworks like it. I use it in my .NET MVC.

4\. All I am saying is typical MS developers dont' venture out, you may. Try
pushing JSON or YAML before MS blessed it with a big arse WCF framework and
you will see. Even try pushing anything not pushed by microsoft to see what I
mean. Heck try this today by pushing a better MVC than ASP MVC to your MS
platform developers and see what happens.

5\. VB.NET, what is wrong with it? Everything is backwards, it is overly
verbose, it mangles the idea of indexors with methods (i.e. [] vs. ()), you
have to write 'End Function' (but their tool does that for you) Ok no need to
go on here... I do like the behind the scenes compilation and way back in 2001
this was a competitive benefit. Other than that VB.NET is horrible for anyone
looking to code ANY other language.

6\. Every poorly written .NET project has Datasets that make it all the way to
the presentation layer to bind to some default GridView. Laziness and not good
software engineering. MS made it too easy there.

7\. Try doing any of those things manually or customized. The tools are sugary
goodness that hide the complexities of the operation. Most likely there will
be a default fail somewhere along the lines on any application of scale. And
it is keeping most from learning key elements of deployment on a larger scale.

8\. Java and .NET are the biggest platforms, by mere probability they attract
more mediocre devs looking for a safe harbor of a job security. There are
plenty of good .NET devs but they get lost and lose the ASP MVC, Sharepoint,
MS SQL only battles and move on.

9\. We can agree, it is an abomination.

I like Microsoft, but they are killing their platform by trying for developer
lock in in all the wrong ways.

~~~
arethuza
To address those points:

1\. That's trivial to change though and I think I would argue that the default
mapping has more to do with how to map to class names (e.g. /Member to
MemberController) than folders.

2\. You don't have to use ASPX if you don't want to - there are a variety of
difference view engines - I happen to prefer StringTemplate.

3\. .Net MVC projects, don't _need_ to be complicated, most of the complexity
you see in these projects is down to the developers

4\. 5. and 6. are true - but things like Datasets cen be easily avoided if you
don't like them (which I don't)

7\. .Net MVC has got some _fantastic_ extension points, I never use any of the
wizards or complex editing tools in VS that hide the underlying file contents.
This is perfectly feasible if you want to do it.

8\. That isn't really a comment on the technology stack - just because a lot
of people use it doesn't mean it is bad.

9\. Writing code to run _in_ SharePoint is the devils work.

------
bmj
When I last worked at a start-up, our product was built on the MS stack, and
saved significant cash by allowing MS to author a white paper detailing how
our product leveraged the .NET Framework and SQL Server. We still paid out
some of the cost of an MSDN subscription, but our membership status was
increased thanks to our "partner" status.

------
zalew
myspace

 _The server infrastructure consists of over 4,500 web servers (running
Windows Server 2003, IIS 6.0, ASP.NET and .Net Framework 3.5), over 1,200
cache servers (running 64-bit Windows Server 2003), and over 500 database
servers (running 64-bit Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2005) as well as a
custom distributed file system which runs on Gentoo Linux._

~~~
peteforde
What a waste of natural resources.

~~~
mcknz
and neural resources.

------
Yaggo
[Warning: heavy overgeneralization] People build their business on what they
are familiar with, and ("modern") programming / hacking culture has its roots
in the open source / unix world, while dos/windows userbase is more connected
to gaming, demoscene genres.

Also, innovative people are inspired by innovative examples, and Microsoft (as
today) isn't seen as such by many.

------
thepumpkin1979
I used to consider myself as a devoted .NET Developer, I've been using it
since .NET 1.0, last time I developed something was with VS 2010 Ultimate,
TFS, SQL Server, WPF and WCF. I think I was happy with it. What happened? I
accepted a Job as Ruby on Rails Developer and bought a MacBook Pro... big
mistake, I don't want to use Windows or any MS stack anymore. My advice: if
you are a happy as a Windows developer, don't ever touch a Mac! :)

------
sv123
We were willing to learn new tech if it was going to provide benefits,
ultimately stuck with what we know for quick dev cycle. <http://www.leaf.ly/>
asp.net mvc windows & sql azure hosting (free for 8 months with BizSpark)

------
peteforde
I firmly believe that your team should choose the right tool for the job,
factoring in what the team is comfortable with. I would never tell a room of
open source coders that they had to use .NET, and I sure wouldn't want to make
the .NET folks learn anything new, either. ;)

Humour aside, the language of your question ("non-MS" and "some open-source
language") implies that the decision to use anything except Microsoft stuff is
the Other, and I just don't think that's a realistic baseline.

There's a world of excellent tools for different jobs, and we are so lucky
because the cream gets to the top a lot faster now.

<http://github.com/languages>

We're not building on WebObjects and you're not working with VB.NET, either.

------
ryanelkins
We are on a MS stack: <http://www.iactionable.com> (our landing site is
Wordpress)

We use ASP.NET MVC 2 and most of Azure offerings. The reason for the lack on
MS based startups probably goes back to using what you know and where founders
come from - we were both working as .NET devs for a few years before starting
IActionable, which is probably atypical. There are definitely other .NET
startups here on HN, probably due to perceptions that it is more expensive and
people generally start out on something else, like an interpreted, as opposed
to compiled language.

------
omeega
I've asked myself the same question. The MSFT stack has worked wonderfully for
me. Its not as expensive as people think, and its so easy to get started.

1)Download the windows microsoft web platform installer 2)In just a few clicks
you can install asp.net, Visual studio web developer and SQLserver express,
_all free_

When you're ready to deploy sign up for the rackspace windows cloud server.
Currently I pay about $60 a month (this includes the cost of windows server).
You can use SQLserver express for free (although its capped at 10?/8? GB of
data).

------
macca321
stackoverflow, huddle, lovemoney, livedrive, toptable, playerio, justgiving

~~~
dreyfiz
Plentyoffish too I think.

------
SkyMarshal
MS seems to have equalized most of the initial price advantage of FOSS with
their free bizspark stuff. Other issues involved:

1\. Many startup hackers are good enough customize Linux for their needs, but
would lack that freedom under Windows.

2\. Open source security model perceived as more reliable than MS's security
through obscurity.

3\. Performance. Not an expert here, but from anecdotal evidence of running
Win7 vs Ubuntu10.04 on my desktop, and WinXP mobile vs Ubuntu UNR on my
netbook, in both cases Linux can run more servers, background, and foreground
processes simultaneously with no system degredation than Windows can. My
netbook under UNR is especially amazing - slow and clunky under Win7, as
responsive as a desktop under UNR. Does that carry over to servers too? (and
can you run a headless Windows server?)

The recent article on Reddit's server costs brought up an interesting
consideration about hardware maybe not being as cheap as it is reputed to be,
at least not in the Amazon cloud, and that maybe choosing your technology
stack based on its inherent performance is still a valid issue (eg, choosing
Rails (or MS) for developer productivity and then throwing servers at it till
it performs well enough may be more costly than perceived).

Can't say for sure since I haven't used MS products for web stuff in almost 10
years.

4\. Vendor lock in, increasing licensing costs as you scale.

~~~
fleitz
1\. It's not difficult to customize Windows. There are well defined SDKs and
interfaces for most of the kernel points. Honestly, how many web startups are
customizing their kernel?

3\. The performance differences are negligible in the general case. Startups
write their own code so most of the performance differences are going to come
from the code they write rather than underlying performance differences. In
both cases, python vs. C# / .NET you can always drop down to C. I doubt that
whatever their problems are they stem from language / compiler. Most sites are
IO bound. IO bound applications are largely a factor of how many disks you
have. The throughput for writing a file in PHP and C are identical on machines
with less than 10 disks.

4\. Licensing costs decrease drastically as you scale on the MSFT side.

~~~
sanderjd
1\. I read that more as customizing in userland than in the kernel, but I
don't know what the original poster's intention was. I _personally_ find it
easier to configure a Linux machine than a Windows machine, but I think it
comes down to familiarity and subjective preference a lot more than anything
else.

------
headbiznatch
We're using the full stack and it's been a lot of fun, actually. Visual Studio
is still the shit, and the release cycles on the tech we are using have been
more than sufficient (.Net, C#, Silverlight, Prism). I find it amusing that
it's a little rebellious in the YC community to use MS tech. So, as has been
mentioned, MS startups are out there, and they exist per the skills of the
group and the needs of the customer base. Just like anything else...

------
sosuke
I'm running the MS stack for my free online dating start up
<http://diveintothepool.com>

I've loved using C# for the site but if I had built it in Ruby or Python I
might have gotten more free traffic. Maybe the buzzness behind using X
programming language that is current, hip and or new might be an easy
marketing tool leading to you hearing more about them.

------
Darmani
My dad was a partner at LetsGet.net, specializing in online ordering for
restaurants. They were acquired last week, and are based entirely on VB.net.

He and the founder were both in their 40s at the start, and had a decade of
Microsoft-based consulting under their belts. I'm not surprised to see very
few people in a similar demographic on HN.

------
noodle
as it has already been mentioned -- having to pay license fees means ramen
profitable is even further away for your average, small bootstrapped startup.

there are some good startups based on the MS stack, but they're generally
startups done by people with money, connections, or extensive experience in
the MS stack.

~~~
Encosia
With BizSpark or WebsiteSpark, you have three years. Then, a Windows Web
Server 2008 R2 license only costs $469. If a business can't manage to scrape
$469 together after three years, they probably have larger problems.

~~~
dpifke
Even a startup can scrape together $469. But $469 _per server_ is another
story, especially in businesses that grow to require hundreds of machines.

$469 is a significant percentage of the hardware cost. The last time I bought
a bunch of servers, they were in the $2500 range.

~~~
Encosia
How many startups need hundreds of machines to get to ramen profitability
though? Any time the licensing cost issue comes up, it seems that the
goalposts move back and forth an awful lot.

------
discreteevent
I used to work with MS stuff all the time. Now its a mix of everything. If I
had a choice I would probably go back for one reason only: Consistency -
Getting more work done and spending less time choosing, configuring and
keeping up with the latest trends.

------
adrianwaj
There is a large pool of MS engineers in Israel as the IDF is run on MS.
Startups tend to be influenced by this talent pool. I'd avoid an MS based
startup myself, an open source startup seems to me, more likely to have more
innovation potential.

 _If anyone believes that Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Salesforce, or
any other big internet company that has become prominent over the past few
years was developed using .NET they have another thing coming._

<http://thewadi.com/start-down-israeli-start-ups-in-crisis/>

~~~
nivertech
I'd say 50% of the shops in Israel are Microsoft based (.NET, VS C++).

The remaining 40% are Java.

Python has a sizable, but still small community.

Tiny Ruby-on-Rails community.

And Erlang ... I think I'm the only full-time Erlang developer in Israel (oops
I moved temporary to Sweden).

------
bradhe
My startup uses MS technology, primarily because both my self and my partner
have many years of experience on the MS platform.

Regarding cost, it's really not _that_ bad -- especially if you qualify for
the BizSpark program.

~~~
rufugee
Wait a few years...

------
jasonkester
Twiddla is built on the MS stack, as is everything else we do here at Expat.

People who build things with upcoming tech tend to mention it because it's
novel. And unfortunately a few of those upcoming technologies don't handle
load particularly well so you get to hear a lot about them as a result of them
falling down.

So yeah, you don't hear about Microsoft stuff for the same reason you don't
hear people talking about PHP or Java. It just plain works and always has, so
there's no story.

------
gspyrou
Perhaps its not trendy enough :)!
<http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/Connect.aspx>

~~~
markstahler
With BizSpark startups dont have to pay any licensing costs for some time. I
also think that licensing is discounted when you become profitable.

BizSpark aside, I think hosting costs/maintenance is much more. For a $20 512
Linode it would cost a hell of a lot more to run MVC.NET + MSSQL.

~~~
rbanffy
You should factor in not only license cost, but the total cost of maintaining
and properly patching (as well as the mandatory unscheduled downtime that
brings) a Windows stack.

Even if they give you the licenses for free, it's much more expensive.

~~~
johns
There is no mandatory unscheduled downtime. Pure FUD. I install updates when I
want and if I wanted, without downtime with some basic load balancing.

~~~
rbanffy
Really? For how long do you hold off updates that fix zero-day remote
exploits?

~~~
johns
As little as possible. And again, in a high-availability infrastructure I can
patch each machine without downtime. I was contending your point that the
downtime was mandatory and unscheduled. Windows never forces you to update at
any time. It strongly suggests, sure. By default, the option is auto-update,
but that's configurable and not required.

~~~
rbanffy
Well... You have to factor in the cost for the added HA infrastructure when
you talk Windows. Patching Linux seldom requires more than a couple seconds
for downtime for the system and I can often patch and bring up machines before
memcaches and varnishes start expiring. Patching Windows often takes half-an-
hour of downtime following another similarly extended period of horrible
performance when the patch installer is doing whatever it needs to do, per
server.

It's different to design a HA cluster that can sustain a minutes-long usage
peak (due to a node going down for maintenance) than one that can sustain an
hour-long outage of one of the nodes.

It all depends, in the end, on how the applications are designed to run - they
are the ones that will decide how many servers you can take down at once. In
any case, the shorter they are down, the better.

Consider a site with 3 front-facing web servers that are affected by a 0-day.
If a server can be patched in 2 minutes, it will result in 6 minutes of 150%
load on the servers not being maintained. If the patch takes an hour, you will
have 3 hours of 150% workload. The internet user may not see the downtime, but
you have to factor in the higher load. The best solution could be to use 4 or
5 servers instead of 3, but that would also increase your vulnerability
window.

------
abrudtkuhl
There are tons of startups using the Microsoft stack... Just because they
don't live on HN or don't appear on Techcrunch does not mean they don't exist.

Microsoft even has BizSpark - a network to provide resources to startups (we
are one). All you can eat Microsoft software via MSDN.

"Price" is no longer an issue and Microsoft has made a point of building a
solid startup ecosystem around their stack.

~~~
rbanffy
That "Price is no longer an issue" is a falacy. You are ignoring the cost of
patching and rebooting Windows boxes and the cost of the redundant
infrastructure required to accommodate the longer downtime Windows patches
require.

And price is no issue only if you fail. If you succeed and have to deploy
dozens of servers, you will quickly feel the it in your wallet. You can't grow
horizontally as cheaply as you can with any free (even free-as-in-beer)
solution.

~~~
abrudtkuhl
In our case it's as cost effective to light up a Rackspace Windows VM than it
is a Linux VM... There are maintenance costs on both sides.

If you have to deploy dozens of servers on any platform you will quickly feel
that in your wallet.

~~~
rbanffy
I have better automation facilities on Unix-like servers than I can have on
Windows. Configuration replication is rather easy. My colleagues here manage
1000+ Linux servers with a homemade solution based on Puppet and Fabric and
can deploy a server from power-up to ready-to-go in a couple minutes.

If you can read Portuguese, they did a very good presentation at FISL in
Brazil a couple days back.

[http://ignofisl.ig.com.br/2010/07/22/material-da-palestra-
so...](http://ignofisl.ig.com.br/2010/07/22/material-da-palestra-sobre-
automacao-de-datacenter/)

------
thenduks
There are quite a few, as people have said, but to add another perspective --
I'm not concerned that much about money (although a couple years/servers in
and it would start to hurt) but more about lock-in.

I have to run Windows servers, use Microsoft's IDE, etc. What if Server 2012
is absolutely terrible (hey, it's happened before). What if some insanely huge
security hole is discovered in IIS (again...). You're hosed. In the land of
open-source you can just do a 15 minute down-time to switch to nginx (or 10+
other options), set up some new servers running a different distro, whatever.

It's just too worrying to purposefully dig yourself into a hole where you live
and die by your vendor. It's not as if their products are all that great,
either. I certainly wouldn't want to develop on Windows, and I'd be even less
happy about forcing potential employees to do so.

TL;DR: Why do you expect to hear of many MS based start-ups? There just isn't
that much compelling founders.

------
tlianza
Wishpot ( <http://www.wishpot.com/> ) is ASP.NET/C#-based.

It's quite a good platform (performance and tooling in particular, LINQ is
also an impressive technology). But truthfully I wouldn't recommend it. Other
platforms excel in other areas, and the Microsoft community culture is nowhere
near as "sharing friendly" as the open source communities. Finding good
developers is harder (it doesn't have the geek cred to attract hackers). Your
deployment options are more limited (can't just get a cheap shared host to get
started). Writing C# is about as enjoyable as writing in Java. (Take that as
you will... but to me that's a slight negative).

If you were starting from scratch, the reasons to choose a Microsoft platform
are not very compelling. You can still create great, fast, performant products
- but you can do that on any of the major platforms.

------
jwhitlark
Well, I came to HN through pg's writing, and part of my enjoyment was the
confirmation of my distrust/dislike of MS. So I'm guessing that self-selection
plays a large role here. That said, I think open source has great benefits for
a startup, but you've got to weigh that for yourself.

------
pragmatic
I'm a C#/ASP.NET developer during the day. My latest project I'm prototyping
in Python/web.py/sqlite. Why?

1) Cost, I want to keep costs low. 2) Hedging my bets. I want to see what the
open source world has to offer. Can I be productive and not pay a lot of money
to MSFT?

------
jmcentire
I think most avoid Microsoft because of two main factors: cost and source.

You might think Microsoft is stable and that things tend to just work; but, if
they stop supporting something you need -- you're SOL. If there is a bug that
affects your software and it's low on their priority list -- you're SOL.

With FOSS, you can branch the project and not update and everything should
continue to work as you'd expect. You can fix a bug yourself if the community
doesn't think it's a priority.

What's more, with the new anti-IP laws in NZ and having the PirateBay being
hosted by the Pirate Party, I imagine there will be a lot of very interesting
changes in the FOSS community.

------
adammichaelc
Loopt, a YC-startup, used Microsoft technologies to build out at least part of
their infrastructure. Note the aspx extension:

<https://app.loopt.com/loopt/termsOfUse.aspx>

------
strlen
First, don't make a decision based on what other people are doing. Don't make
a technical decision based on the job market either: that's an argument
commonly used for Blub. If you have a cool and interesting project, people
will not mind learning a different language to join you, even if they're
mostly hobbyists who would never touch MS Software on their own.

There are some caveats, however: you should have a solid reason why you're
using this product ("it's what I know how to program" or "it's easy to hire
for" is not; "we have a large codebase and we can't just stop feature
development and do a re-write" is), it has to the an acceptable tool for the
job (e.g., you're not doing machine learning in PHP) and you have to be
flexible enough to use other tools when they're right for the job (e.g.,
Facebook writing services in C++ when needed vs. forcing everyone to work
exclusively in PHP). If you fit these criteria, you'll be able to hire hackers
(although I personally wouldn't join a company that required me to run Windows
on the desktop, which is very likely to be the case if your product is on
.NET).

Now as for why I don't use MS tools:

F# is pretty amazing and C# is fairly bearable compared to other languages in
Blub Central (of course it's still a Blub). If Mono were more usable for the
server side, I'd be writing projects in those two languages. I'd very
seriously consider Gtk# or Cocoa# + Mono for writing a desktop application (as
opposed to using C++ + Qt or Java/Scala + Swing/SWT). Nonetheless, Mono is
just not (yet) usable for a server.

I'd flatly refuse to use Windows for either a server or a development machine
as it's simply an environment designed for the masses and _not_ for hackers. I
am many times more productive with Perl/Python UNIX shell + Terminal than I am
with a GUI and Powershell (which is a lot better than the Microsoft tools I
grew up with).

If Microsoft actually targeted hackers and developers as opposed to IT
departments of non-technical firms I'd consider their products. Problem is
that they're not a charity, but a corporation with a legal obligation to
generate profit for their shareholders. Their current strategy works well for
them and I don't see that changing. When I see a company using a proprietary
stack, I _first_ assume that the company is mostly "business guys" and wants
warm bodies. I'll have to convinced otherwise, which is possibly; I am not
close minded: you can't just judge people by the architectural decisions they
made without knowing _why_ the made them.

I am glad to see Microsoft support F# and Scala on .NET, but I am not sure how
far this will go. I'll stick with an open source/Linux stack for all my
hobbyist programming and I can't imagine building a start-up on anything else.

~~~
pornel
Unfortunately Cocoa# seems to be completely dead (mono website says project is
being "revitalized" on cocoa-sharp.com, but the domain has expired and fallen
into squatters' hands).

------
rksprst
We're on the Microsoft stack at SocialBlaze: <http://www.socialblazeapp.com>
(Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2, asp.net MVC 2.0, c# 4.0)

We do a lot of processing and storing of data, SQL Server is awesome for that.

Microsoft has a bad rep, but the libraries/tools/services they have are pretty
powerful, bug-free, and easy to implement.

Only downside seems to be cost, but with BizSpark you don't have to worry
about it for 3 years. And after 3 years you really shouldn't have to worry
about it either because paying for it shouldn't be a problem.

------
ronnier
While I wouldn't call it a startup, my project (in the bookmarking realm) is
C#, ASP.NET MVC 2, SQL Server, Webkit, and Lucene.

While working on it, I had all the pieces put together to quickly make a
mobile version of hacker news <http://toadjaw.com/hn> that offers an article
text viewer and screenshots of the article. So all that's in .net.

I've mentioned elsewhere that the overall project is about 75% done. Not ready
for public use yet, but close. If anybody is really interested in beta
testing, let me know.

------
maxstoller
Carbonmade is built on the Microsoft stack:
<http://www.microsoft.com/web/inspiration/carbonmade.aspx>.

------
absconditus
Not all start-ups are "web 2.0" companies. You likely are completely unaware
of any of the start-ups in a field like health care where Windows is king.

~~~
cont4gious
not necessarily true. I'm working on a health care startup, and we're running
a LAMP stack.

granted, we're a web 2.0 health care company, so we're more of a hybrid.

------
hiester
There have been a few blog posts recently on this topic:
[http://www.aaronstannard.com/post/2010/07/03/NET-Culture-
Sho...](http://www.aaronstannard.com/post/2010/07/03/NET-Culture-Shock-Why-
NET-Adoption-Lags-Among-Startups.aspx)

[http://tinpanvalley.tumblr.com/post/796605832/why-
startups-d...](http://tinpanvalley.tumblr.com/post/796605832/why-startups-
dont-use-net)

------
boyter
Not I. But I have considered it. You need to keep in mind that Microsoft will
open doors for you that open source won't.

Now before you mod me into oblivion think about it. What does Microsoft want?
To sell more licenses. So if you wander into MS and say you want to use their
stack to do X but you need buy in from some people they will know who to talk
to to make it happen. That way everyone benefits.

------
jim_h
Microsoft isn't free. You need to get licenses for MS SQL, MS Windows Server,
etc. As you expand, you have to pay for more licenses.

------
shalmanese
[http://www.quora.com/Given-the-lack-of-highly-successful-
con...](http://www.quora.com/Given-the-lack-of-highly-successful-consumer-
Internet-companies-on-the-NET-stack-why-doesnt-Microsoft-make-a-bigger-effort-
to-get-NET-adoption-among-early-consumer-facing-start-ups) has some insights.

------
gus_massa
Writely (now "Google Docs") used C#: "The reason for choosing C# was the
integrated debugging of browser and server components." (
[http://radar.oreilly.com/2005/10/the-secret-sauce-of-
writely...](http://radar.oreilly.com/2005/10/the-secret-sauce-of-writely.html)
)

------
yesman
The popular AlertFox monitoring service runs on Windows:
<http://wiki.alertfox.com/Monitoring_Server>

...which is no surprise, as they offer transaction web monitoring with
Internet Explorer ;)

------
slantyyz
Stack Exchange / Stack Overflow is MS based. Exception rather than the rule
though.

------
djcapelis
Because who wants to run Windows on a server?

Yes, you can, many people do, but it's less common, which is why basing a
startup on an MS stack is less common.

------
barkmadley
start ups that use MS products probably don't spend a lot of time promoting
themselves on HN.

tjoos.com was a start up that used a MS web stack.

saasu.com is sticking with their MS based web stack.

<http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/> is aimed directly at start up
software/web companies.

------
eibhrum
<http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/>

------
rbanffy
free > paid

open > closed

~~~
SkyMarshal
and Free > non-Free

~~~
rbanffy
Thanks! Worthy addition.

------
herdrick
splashup.com does. anywhere.fm did.

