Microsoft and development tools

My human readers may want to sit this one out. But the article in question really is interesting, so you may want to be brave.

Joel Spolsky has a really interesting analysis of Microsoft's current situation.

Microsoft's crown strategic jewel, the Windows API, is lost. The cornerstone of Microsoft's monopoly power and incredibly profitable Windows and Office franchises, which account for virtually all of Microsoft's income and covers up a huge array of unprofitable or marginally profitable product lines, the Windows API  is no longer of much interest to developers. The goose that lays the golden eggs is not quite dead, but it does have a terminal disease, one that nobody noticed yet.

Now that I've said that, allow me to apologize for the grandiloquence and pomposity of that preceding paragraph. I think I'm starting to sound like those editorial writers in the trade rags who go on and on about Microsoft's strategic asset, the Windows API. It's going to take me a few pages, here, to explain what I'm really talking about and justify my arguments. Please don't jump to any conclusions.

.... which makes it difficult to excerpt his article meaningfully. Do check it out; it's one of those things where even if you don't agree, along the way he says some provocative stuff that will get you thinking.