Interesting Microsoft Insight from Javalobby

A couple of weeks ago, Microsoft hosted a Technology Summit and invited many prominent members from a variety of different platforms (Linux, Java, Flash, etc.) to our campus in Redmond. They spent two-and-a-half packed days listening to presentations, learning about our products and tools, asking hard questions, and providing great feedback. The founder of Javalobby, Rick Ross, has recorded a summary of his insights and thoughts based on the summit. A downloadable PDF version is also available (free registration required).

Here are a couple of interesting quotes:

The VS.NET 2005 and Avalon demos simply show the power that this company wields. Their tools and the Windows platform as a whole are evolving rapidly to keep pace with developer and customer expectations. Again, I know I was not the only one thinking to myself, “Wow, those are some serious tools!” and wishing we could enjoy fully-compatible Java development plugins for the Visual Studio environment.

The ASP.NET 2.0 examples were a case in point: the modular blocks of functionality you get with ASP.NET 2.0 had all the leading Java guys in the audience drooling. No Joke, they really did.

Of course, I chose those quotes, because it's great to hear nice things about your own company and its products. However, there's a lot more to learn from Rick's summary, and it's definitely worth a listen.