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Microsoft Launches Free Web Software Eco-System
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft, inspired perhaps by the ease of selecting and installing iPhone apps, has taken a similar approach to gather back market share of its IIS web server in a predominantly Apache/PHP market. 10 open source CMS, gallery, wiki, and blog tools were chosen to populate the eco-system, dubbed Web App Gallery. Developers must agree to principles and can now submit their PHP or .NET application for inclusion. Once an application is in the gallery, Windows users use Microsoft Web Platform Installer, released in a keynote at MIX this week, which inspects the the local system, and installs and configures dependencies like the IIS webserver, PHP, URL re-writers, and file permissions. Screenshots show this to be quite easy for the typical computer user. This could provide some real competition for WAMP and Linux shell install processes."
Disclaimer: I work for http://acquia.com/ , and we provide commercial support and network services for the open-source Drupal CMS. Over several weeks, we worked with Microsoft to make sure Drupal would be well represented in the Windows Application Gallery to provide IIS users access to an easy to use Drupal installation. The result is here http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/AcquiaDrupal.aspx We already provide Drupal Windows and Mac stack installers for Apache at http://acquia.com/downloads and so this was a natural extension of our mission to increase Drupal usage. Overall it was a positive experience and a way for us to ensure that the Drupal market continues to grow by supporting end-users who are committed to Microsoft's IIS and can't or prefer not use Apache. Microsoft of course also is motivated to ensure IIS is a great platform for any application, so we see this as a win-win. If you'd like to learn more, our CTO Dries Buytaert wrote about it when the Windows Application Gallery launched at http://buytaert.net/microsoft-promoting-drupal
The redistributables are not exactly a gig - though I always think like that because they are huge (I have to download the full ones to install on my customer's site as they're not connected to the internet)
But: add them up, its not a gig, but its getting there:
plus another 50 odd Mb for the service packs.