regarding MS’ RIA, they have released Silverlight and XAML which is a markup based RIA development framework. very much alike Adobe AIR. If things goes as expected with MS RIA, it will be a real suite for RIA. XAML + Expression Studio will take some market share dominated by Flash.

I think we all have the freedom to choose on what would be best for a certain project or requirements, anyways its our users that will tell if what we have made rocks, regardless of what tool we used.

PS. I am in no way directly connected with MS, but i have the privilege to access all their tools and technologies. I would love to share with you what i know. Good luck.

i’m just wondering what will happen to their RIA-related tools. i haven’t used those yet. i’m not sure if i would be able to use those. i am using the adobe flex for creating RIA applications, but of course, i would want to compare which of the two would better fit me.

i thinks its good for us advertisers, with competition around we can spend less on Ads and get more results LOL. Competition makes the service or product better and cheaper (hopefully)

FYI, the Sql Server 2005 enterprise customers are using now is from Sybase. Axapta, Navision, and Solomon ERPs are all buy outs.

FYI, MS bought a firm in thailand specialized in

true, the two will perish.. but just as expected because every software has shelf life else we may still be living the COBOL, BASIC and TUBRO ASM. And im sure you dont want to write “Hello World” with a hundred lines of code.

i think MS is very much focused with their OS, in fact they’re about to release new Windows Server 2008 and Service Packs for Vista just been released. Next version of windows is also in the development. In my team, we are using Visual Studio 2008, given, they are focused on several technologies at the same time. Just bad, they failed in Search Engine war.

MS wanted to buy MS basically not just for its internet arm but for its talented engineers and scientist. MS experienced a lot frustrations and failures in the search engine arena from MSN Search, Live Search etc., this time can be a different game, and worth trying.

Adobe did not kill Flash, because that would be the dumbest idea they would ever entertain. Business wise, its not so smart

If a start-up company is very promising, why would i not try to buy it and have them work with me instead if i know its better for both of us. If it doensn’t work the way I expect it, thrash it, try another one. If i am the owner of a company and I was offered a sum which would make me not work anymore my whole life, i would love that. Or… that will give me a chance to try another venture :).

Look at Microsoft producing their own flash player. Yes, business is business. But there are times that you can’t just buy and kill other softwares. I guess they have to concentrate on their OS first, on making it better, than creating new softwares to compete with others.

And if they bought Yahoo, what would happen to Yahoo mail, to Yahoo search engine?

Look at what Adobe did. Adobe is also buying softwares of their competitors. But it doesn’t mean they would kill those. It would depend on what software is more powerful.

Or, they conquer the ad wars via Yahoo and eventually demoralize Google’s apps and bring the app wars back to the real OS (inside your PC).

Either way, it’s just a businessman’s strategy. It’s not like the sky is falling on Microsoft.

I agree with you, though: Microsoft is no pushover.