So, this is my first post on my 'new' blog about living with Microsoft. In fact, not just living with, but learning to stop worrying and love Redmond. Just to clarify, I do not work for Microsoft, this blog is a personal view on coming back to the MS technology stack after many years.
The purpose of this introductory post is to say that while I have been 'forced' into a much more Microsoft world than I previously occupied, what I am discovering is that the MS of old is being replaced, quickly, by a very different animal. And whilst I continue to keep hold of my sceptical-at-best attitude to the all mighty SharePoint, I have to say that my head has been well and truly turned by both Office 365 and Azure and in particular the latter.
I used to hold the opinion (and I feel it was very justified) that MS wanted to dominate across every arena into which they ventured. Stories I have heard certainly seem to back that up. And dominate they did. Dominance comes with a price, you were either with them or against them. You either dived right in to the bucket of kool-aid and focused on what MS told you, or you ventured elsewhere. I didn't dive in, I never liked having things forced upon me. I don't like to be sucked in to a technology where I no longer have choice, at that was how I viewed MS. From languages to applications, you were either on Windows or you walked.
But that was then.
But over the past couple of years I became aware that I was responding so the various announcements coming out of Redmond with some enthusiasm. Visual Studio Code, for you Mac or Linux machine; Visual Studio Online (now Team Services) supporting builds that run on xCode; a single Windows runtime and API across all devices; Docker support in Azure. The list was long and unusually breached the MS product boundary. It was exciting.
Where MS went, so I was destined to follow. The company I was working for had made the decision to go all out MS Cloud. The stack was very heavy on SharePoint but with a requisite amount of Azure and Office 365 thrown in for good measure. The more I dug into Azure and the more I worked with Office 365, the more I understood (or thought I did) where MS are heading. And the more I find myself impressed and excited about what will happen next.
So, that's my starting point. My view may change, MS might disappoint (in fact they're bound to), but I hope that the direction remains. It's exciting to think about where they might go and what they might do and I look forward to reporting my thoughts and experiences in the months ahead.
For now, that's all I have.
