Windows Azure Offers Developers Iron-Clad Lock-in

snydeq writes "Microsoft's move to the cloud is certain to create a whole new kind of developer partner, Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister writes. But as much as Microsoft ISVs will likely go along with the shift to Windows Azure to keep revenue streams going, the kind of lock-in they will experience will be worlds away from what they face today. Rather than being able to ignore the new version of a key framework, developers will have no other option than to update their code to suit Microsoft's latest platform. That kind of lock-in will leave customers in the lurch, subject to their vendors' bottom lines, as ISVs that can't afford to rework code to keep up with Microsoft's latest platform will begin dropping services, and customers will have little choice but to accept the new terms of service their vendors send along."

Comments

No serious enterprise customers will adopt this

[morgan_greywolf]

Constantly locked in to a upgrade path? No, way. No way will anyone go for this for anything real.

Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

In a world with new wars, pandemics, food crises, and economic meltdowns, it is good to know that the morals of one company have stayed the same. Microsoft is our rock in these crazy times.

Don't worry, Miguel will fix it

[Wesley Felter]

I'm sure he's already started on an open-source Mono-based Azure clone.

Re:Like iPhone

[zmjjmz]

The Android allows you to download applications from the web, not jut the marketplace.

Windows Azure Offers Developers Iron-Clad Lock-in

[iznogud]

... as opposed to, say, Google App Engine.

Ms is better at legacy support than anyone

[timmarhy]

this is bullcrap. MS is better than ANYONE at providing legacy support for old platforms. look at how long win32 stuck around? STILL works. backward compatability is one of the corner stones of MS's business. IMHO they can't win no matter what they do, if they break legacy support to fix things like security they end up taking heat like they have over vista, if they continue legacy support like they have been doing they take heat of lack of features and security.

This guy has just blown out a load of basless speculation and your all buying into it (any giving him page hits).

Re:Well...

[fermion]

Writing good code is expensive. This is one of the reasons why MS is so popular. It allows developers to write bad code that will still runs, is still sufficiently maintainable, and does the job with minimum reliability. This is why good code, which was never really in fad to begin with, never really took off. Even with modern tools, writing good portable code is largely cost prohibitive.

This is why the PHB might not fall into this new trap. It seems that MS is trying to force good coding practices, with new fangled ideas like the MVC pattern. It may become easier to write bad code on an existing long term stable system than invest in the highly skilled, and invariably annoying people, that can write code that is so abstracted that components can be changed out on the fly. After all the MS philosophy is machines are cheaper than people, so it is better to buy more machines to run inefficient and buggy code that to pay people to write efficient and reliable code.

Exactly like OS X.

[SanityInAnarchy]

I'm usually the first to bash Microsoft. I'm usually the last to defend them. I do think they deserve every bit of flame they get.

But this is just getting stupid...

Apple did exactly the same thing with OS X. I'm talking about the initial launch -- OS X was a completely backwards-incompatible change from OS 9. In fact, there were major architectural changes -- like the introduction of such modern features as protected memory -- which would have made it pretty much impossible to maintain pure backwards compatibility and do everything they wanted to do.

So they said "fuck it", switched to a completely different architecture, and wrote an emulation/virtualization system called Classic.

One thing which I know I've heard described for Windows 7 was the ability to run an older version (like Vista) in a virtual machine. You know, kind of like Classic. The only difference would be if Microsoft wanted to charge you for the license -- and I hope they aren't that stupid.

I (and others) have frequently disparaged Microsoft for their bloated, crufty, undocumented (or under-documented, or mis-documented), and downright weird APIs. I know that before I heard about this change (which isn't news, by the way, it's been on Slashdot before), I figured I would do exactly the same thing if I was in Microsoft's shoes. Don't even try to support the old APIs -- just start entirely from scratch, build a compatibility layer, and tell people to upgrade.

One more thing, and then I'm done: What the fuck does this have to do with lock-in? What, did you think Win32 was open? It's only portable thanks to Wine, and Wine never has, never will, never can catch up and support every single app.

If you're going to be locked in anyway, why not be locked into something newer and (presumably) cleaner?

If it's not clean, that's another argument. But this strategy is not about lock-in.

End rant.

Re:Vuze?

[Attila Dimedici]

So it's OK for MS to remove the "us" at the end of Azureus to make Azure and everybody should be OK with that, but if somebody tries to replace the W in windows with an L to make Lindows, everyone should be up in arms about that?

In both cases, it seems like it has much more to do with WHO owns the trademark than with any sharply objective dividing line of legal fairness.

Microsoft did not "remove the 'us' from Azureus". Azure is a word already.
More importantly MS is not selling a product called "Azure", they have given a product they are developing the code name "Azure". When they actually release the product if they call it Azure, then it might be time to discuss this.