James Urquhart (@jamesurquhart)
12/2/09 7:21 PM
RT @llangit: RT @mhindsbo: #Azure supports .NET languages, such as C# + VB + Java, PHP, Python and now also Ruby http://tinyurl.com/yfs7cn6

James Urquhart from eWeek reports that Azure is now supporting Ruby on Rails.

This is exciting – you now have a major platform cloud player validating the Ruby platform.

It also shows that Microsoft is starting to behave like a “split company” – the Windows and Server business clearly not holding the web services businesses hostage.    Previous Microsoft endeavors have always had vertical integrity as a goal – Browser, OS, Office, Server, Web.  They are changing.

I’m going to start experimenting with this stuff and report back what I find.

From InformationWeek:

Google partner LTech has already build an application called SharePoint Move for Google Apps using the API to help liberate data, as Google might put it, from SharePoint.

Sharepoint Move is based on the Google Sites APIs.  These types of APIs are what makes the cloud viable.  The best cloud computing platforms have open, easy-to-understand, standards based interfaces for developers, customers, and partners to build upon.

The idea behind Sharepoint move is to help organizations smoothly transition their users to Google Apps.  Many companies have invested a significant amount of time and training on systems like Sharepoint.   Tools that help to ease that transition have value in the cloud product ecosystem today.  We’ll be marketing more tools like this for the Google Apps platform (and other platforms) in the coming months.

A open, flexible Facebook-style API for Apps would be awesome.  Imagine the community building the next generation office platform.

Right now, developers outside of Google can write Gadgets that live on the outside layout areas of GMail. Google developers have done some interesting things with Labs – I use the easy to find "Mark as Read" button / gadget.  However, if trusted development teams in the community, and developers at companies adopting Google Apps, had complete access to everything – including the interface, Apps would meet the challenge set forth to it by Microsoft Office (and its powerful friend, VBA).  A fully programmable cloud-based office suite.

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Our friends over at Softies on Rails have put a book out that will help any .NET developer looking to work with Ruby on Rails.  The Softies crew was an early inspiration for me to try out Ruby and Mac development, and I am really happy for them that they were able to put this tome together.

The book will help new Rails developers coming from a Microsoft/closed-source world avoid pitfalls and get up to speed quickly.

This looks really cool.  I hope it is not all for naught.  Anyone using it?  Have any examples? Please post them!

The support forum has few active topics. But I think there is potential here, even if Yahoo doesn’t exist in the same form 3 or 6 months from now.  I don’t think Microsoft would shut this stuff down.

YQL looks really neat and is a popular topic.  YQL seems like a highlight of this offering.

Back in May, Microsoft began offering hosted Exchange on college campuses through its Live@edu service — a move some saw as a direct response to Google’s success in the higher education market. Yahoo is also pushing to entrench its Zimbra email and collaboration desktop in higher ed. It’s part of an overall trend toward hosted email services on college campuses, Laczynski said.

“We’re seeing interest in this space in general and specifically with Google Apps,” he said. “There’s a lot of excitement. … These are students that are used to Gmail. They love Google. They’re used to hosted services. They’re not corporate email users.”

I spoke with Colin Steele, from TechTarget, earlier this week  regarding the opportunities for solution providers working with Google Apps in the Education space.   It is truly an exciting time to be involved in a transitional technology wave.  Hosted and cloud-based services are the way things are going, and Google Apps is a great example of a real world case.  We’ve seen so much great interest from colleges, universities, and school districts around the country.

Microsoft  and eBay score unexpectedly high marks with developers, according to Evans.

You decide, the  report can be found here.   But I can’t quite grasp what sort of survey panel they used that didn’t have Amazon, with AWS – arguably the most robust and uniquely used Web 2.0 service framework yet, and Facebook – with the highest profile and most accelerating and deftly used developer program in the short history of Web 2.0 in its Facebook Apps program, blowing everyone away.

But then I read Evans Data’s client list, revealing both eBay and Microsoft as customers.

John Andrews, president of Evans Data, shills for Microsoft here:

“Microsoft has much more experience in developer programs and it shows”

Now this has traditionally been true, heck my company was a Microsoft shop for years because of the quality of their developer programs in a sea of almost non-existing offerings from the players of the day (Sun, Oracle, IBM, and the like).  But today?  I think that putting up MSN widgets against Facebook and Amazon just shows how little the offering is.  Google is an upstart and already commands high marks in this area, despite not being an Evans Data Advisory Panel member or client.

It would be pretty cool if someone wrote a Web 2.0 survey/rating system for Web 2.0 development programs.  I would trust the community at large more than a sample group programmed by a private analyst group that may very well be paid by the entities it is reviewing.

Please run Microsoft again.  It needs you.

I think you may need it too.   Your recent comments are not very helpful.

I was kind of hoping for something more profound and insightful than  “We can expect that the variety and quality of software will accelerate in the years ahead.”

You used to say cool stuff like “Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.”   Now you sound like an article from the in-flight magazine, from 1996.

Your brainchild’s most threatening competitor, Google, has a CEO too.  Eric Schmidt is definitely in tune with the future of the web. His recent interview in Wired was revealing and revealed the visionary aspect of being a CEO of a major force in web technology,

Steve Ballmer is awesome. His videos are great.  He eats hippie CEO’s like Jerry Yang for breakfast.  However, Microsoft needs someone at the helm for all the software stuff that you were good at for all those years.  No, it wasn’t perfect.  But it sure was popular and effective.  The question really is, what does Microsoft look like in 10 years?  Because the Internets aren’t waiting for it to catch up.

Best,

Ed

Kind of like I’ve be saying for the past few months (here and especially here), Microsoft has a serious challenge ahead of them. Cloud computing is becoming more popular. Almost every new project that I’ve been working on relies on some sort of cloud based system.