The 12th November 2014 marks an important date. This is the date that Microsoft publically announced that they were going to open source the dotnet core and CLR. I really didn’t see this coming. For me at least, this was a game changer.

I grew up around the world of Unix and Linux but in the early days when we had to choose between .Net and Java I choose to walk the Microsoft path and left the world of Unix behind. I kept up to date from time to time, pulling down the latest distro from Ubuntu or SUSE or RHEL, but for me productivity and skills transfer was always going to get in the way of Linux becoming king of the desktop for the masses.

Then Apple got really popular. Then all the Linux guys started using macbooks and running Virtual Machines. It was cool to be a Unix guy again. Not only cool, but you could actually make a living doing Linux stuff. This certainly wasn’t the case when I embraced Microsoft back in 1999.

And so the scene was set. Two paths had diverged. The Linux and Java camp on one side (more recently joined by the Mac fanboys) and the Microsoft Engineers on the other side.

I’ll be honest, it was starting to look bleak. IE sucked and didn’t run on Android or iOS. Window Phone had too much ground to make up in missing apps. Windows 8 was, well.. let’s just not metion windows 8, and Windows RT wasn’t much better than a virtual terminal or a Netflix screen to be honest. Even though Azure was starting to make real grounds, Azure SQL database performance was pretty terrible unless you went with the top permium service tier.

Then in the space of 12 months, everything changed, and the 12th Novermber 2014 marked a turning point for me. Microsoft changed their strategy, or rather, they refined the strategy. They moved from the Apple-Esk copy-cat talk of “mobile and mobility” focus to talk of a cloud first and mobile first strategy. Then Satya Nadella dropped the new mantra: “Microsoft is a Productvity and Platform Company”. He explained it and I got it. I was excited once again. Really excited.

So much happened in 2014: Azure made astonishing progresss in all areas from Azure Sql Database V12, to NoSql/DocumentDB, Azure Websites, Cloud Solutions and a myrad of other GA offerings. Office 365 was suddenly usable again, especially from a mobile device.. any mobile device. Satya Nadella wasn’t joking when he repeated the mantra “cloud first, mobile first” world. Visual Studio Update 4 really improved everything especially Sql Data Tools, TFS and Git integration, not to mentions insights, telemetry, code lens and so much more. TFS Online was rebranded as Visual Studio Online, and was astonishingly full of features, from side by side TFS and Git support, to Continuous Deliver, Kanban boards and all Built for Agile. But there was more yet to come: HD Insights, Hadoop, streaming analytics, Office Graoh, Delve and my personal favourite - Machine Learninng.

Then Microsoft released Visual Studio Community Edition for Open Source projects. Next, I looked at Visual Studio 2015 preview. When I saw the new project system layout for ASPNET5 that support other toolkits and frameworks like AngularJS, less, npm, grunt and Bower) and saw the devs pull from GitHub, and run msbuild to compile, build and run end to end unit tests straight from github, I had no doubt that the Microsoft world was a totally new universe. Microsoft had stepped off the Event Horizon, and everything was travelling fast. I couldn’t keep up. PluralSight, Channel9 and Microsoft Virtual Academy became my TV and Scot Hanselman became my radio.

And then, the world saw Windows 10 preview on desktop, tablet and phone. …and HoloLens.

It was cool to love Microsoft again, and both google and apple were starting to look uncool.

This blog is my journey through this landscape on what has happend, what might happen and what is happening today. It’s an exciting journey, because I’m pretty sure the Linux and Java camp ain’t going to see this coming, and I’m pretty sure that a lot of .Net developers that have never dipped a toe in the cross-platform world are going to be real scared of all the changes.

For me what it means is that if you are not learning to Sharpen the Saw, and stay current, you are not going to see this coming either.

So devs, if you are wise, you are going to have to start investing real time in learning about The New Microsoft. Becasuse everything has changed and if you don’t get on board you are very quickly going to become extinct. It’s as simple as that.