[ale] OT: Microsoft leaps to services

[Jim Philips]

Count on Microsoft to try an jump on the train after it's left the station. 
They are announcing today that they will be getting into Web services, 
potentially competing with their own desktop software. Here is the link:

http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2005/11/off_topic.html

There is a good quote in the post from David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of 
Rails:

"Microsoft is now entirely optional. No part of the stack needs Microsoft. Not 
on the client, not on the server. And I think that's a pretty tough challenge 
for a company that used to be a necessity. ... To be frank, I don't ever see 
the good times coming back for them. Microsoft will have to move to higher 
grounds. Get out of the infrastructure race. Like Apple did. There is no 
dominant future for the Microsoft tool chain for Web development in sight. 
But I doubt the company will acknowledge that before it's game over."