tomgeer.com

This new strategy from Microsoft is interesting and out of character for them. As a technologist who is partial to startups and had the (mostly unfortunate) experience of working for Microsoft for a short time, I had to comment.

I can’t imagine this gaining MSFT much market share. The key, early personnel at startups are going to have strong opinions about the tech stack…and aren’t going to be swayed by what is essentially a period of deferred license feeds.

My personal opinion is that there are still two huge problems with this:

1. Their suite is still inferior to almost all alternatives
2. It’s obvious that taking them on up this program will lock you into the Microsoft platform for the long haul, meaning you’re going to start paying those hefty fees as soon as you hit your 3rd birthday or $1M in revenue.

No thanks.