I’ve recently been discussing with clients and prospects around the use of Microsoft vs Everything else technology. Specifically in comparison with ‘open source’ technology. It’s been a revelation for me that Microsoft is prevalent in building internet applications and websites. I’m not against Microsoft technology per se. MS technology is widely used and they have provided the world with some fantastic tools.
However, with the advent of the developer movement and ‘open source’ (of which I have been a part in the past), providing robust, well architected, scalable and functionally rich applications, I find it hard to understand why anyone would want to use anything other than this.
Most software built and ‘open sourced’ has independent peer review, generally built by excellent technologists who want to ‘show off’ their skills. They are judged by the rest of open source developer community – not internal QA! So making sure their code works is always something they strive for!
From a business point of view, I understand that once an investment is made in any technology or application, the business case for replacing this open source can be difficult to swallow.
However, I would favour ‘open source’ any day! The proliferation of millions of lines of well tested code
There is a Wikipedia entry here which talks about this topic, not a great article, but at least lays down some of the arguments.