After watching the key notes and selected sessions from Microsoft #Build2015 over on Channel 9 I’m definitely liking Microsoft again. This new found affection is form largely from the perspective of a HTML developer and to some extent as an accessibility practitioner. To be honest this is a welcome pleasant surprise.
When I Started Windows 3.0 development back in the day (and with liberal help from Charles’ Petzold’s excellent book), I soon figured Microsoft treated developers well, even courting them with shiny tech to explore and great communications (like MSDN magazine and then later with huge stacks of CDs).
This was the early phase of Microsoft corporate culture when they were still very much developer led. Admittedly, some of their products’ usability suffered from this bias and quite rightly they changed structure. Later, I moved on from embedded development using MASM, and MS Visual C for PC deployments an eventually to MS Windows powered financial products. As a result of tweaking the UK SKU of MS Money I even managed to work for Microsoft on some MSN back end code as a ‘contractor’ in Red West B, but that’s another story.
I started to focus on the intersection of web accessibility, where Microsoft had a limited user story, and open source, where they were largely seen as the face of the proprietary corporate enemy. That view was not helped by Bill Gates’ famous open letter to hobbyists which wound a lot of people up at the time and later. Boy have things changed!
Even though I really enjoyed working on Linux and the excellent accessibility features of Gnome 2 and Mozilla Firefox, I must admit I did keep using and developing on/for Windows. I created a number of small Windows based Assistive Technologies, including the popular PowerTalk that automatically narrates PowerPoint presentations as you operate them. Powertalk uses Python to access the Office Object Model and drive SAPI speech syntheses. By the way, SAPI is one of many excellent technologies with powerful accessibility uses from the Microsoft Research stable. Another is Kinect.
Microsoft then entered what I see as the dark Balmer years and I largely moved away as user or developer. Even though my then business partner and strong Open Source community leader, Ross Gardler, was strongly not anti Microsoft. Actually, I eventual found out why Ross held that view as he left to joined Microsoft Open Tech. At one point we did look at Windows 8 HTML hybrid development (WinJS + perhaps Cordova) but in those early times we hit issues that I could not easily figure out from the historically excellent MSDN documentation. Mind you, I had not yet found Kraig Brochshmidt’s excellent free ebook – a “must read” for any HTML development on Windows.
I must admit that at the time I felt that the move to Microsoft was going to be important for both Ross and Microsoft. After my experience from Build2015 I feel that’s reasonably well validated. Here’s why
- The clear overall impression from Build was that Microsoft have now adjusted their culture so they now embrace and engage open source communities. Those of you aware of the more popular old criticisms of Microsoft will know why I highlighted that :). In the process Microsoft have rediscovered a friendship with developers. The dual C words of Community and Conversation seem to have almost become mantras, at least in the session I watched. Sure,they are doing this for business survival reasons, but it still rocks.
- New developer tooling, including the excellent new Visual Studio Code, show energy in supporting popular open source tools and workflows used by those outside of the Microsoft way. This is especially true in the web and HTML app space as I saw demos of nodejs, Bower, Gulp, Cordova, Angular, backbone and more. Plus Microsoft’s own WinJS framework works with Angular and other frameworks. And, oh did I, really see those Angular devs in a Build presentation!?
- Edge is so obviously the new browser on the block from a standards point of view. If you recall why Mozilla Firefox was started you realise that is a most welcome result. We’ve recently been seeing Microsoft engage with W3C and other groups to great effect. Even if sometimes they want to push things in different directions to others, for example ORTC rather than webRTC, they are taking an active part, unlike some others whom I won’t mention. Also the the F12 tooling has some great innovative features, including the ability to attach to embedded webviews. This ‘joining in’ even includes key bindings – as I honestly heard the presenter saying “why be different to others for no good reason?”.
- The new developer paths to and from Android and iOS are also impressive. As is the support of hosted apps and win32 apps in the appstore. Microsoft are obviously keen to get everyone on their Windows/Azure platforms.
The other reason I find I’m liking Microsoft again is their approach to supporting the plethora of devices, form factors and input modes that we now face. Universal Apps, the flexible input platform and Continuum act together to provide the basics for a smooth cross platform (device) and accessible experience for users.
For example plugging a keyboard into my Android ASUS transformer tablet just didn’t work well enough so I gave up. Windows controls support mouse, touch, keyboard and even pen and games controller. With Continuum you can plug a mouse, keyboard and HDMI monitor into a suitable phone and get a near desktop experience.
The flip side of this flexibility is a boost in accessibility. The previously mentioned paths between other developer platforms, including their own, strengthen this considerably. My strong impression is that Microsoft have the best, if not unique, story here and it will only get better.
Definitely not your mom’s Microsoft. I’m looking forward to watching this unfold…