>>But do you see WPF as gaining a lot of traction? Is there still interest in Silverlight?
No. Even the most fervent MS apologists blush over the short happy life of those two.

>Don't you think the HMTL5/Jquery UI / business layer is going to gain the greatest acceptance wiht ASP .NET apps using MVC or WebServices and EF?

Just last night I attended a packed ASP.NET session at MS in Phila. Part of it was given by John V Petersen, who I think once hung out here.
The other speaker, Jeff Fritz, a lead developer at Telerik, is in the same league as JVP- top notch.
Their focus was on MS's push to get all the disparate pieces of ASP.NET - MVC, Web API, Webforms and SignalR working as one framework more readily.
HTML5 and jquery came up in passing, but some of the things they showed when all those things come together were impressive.
The whole is more powerful than the parts.

The buzz words were there in abundance, and there was the usual fluff, but one takeaway is that MS is listening for ways to improve ASP.NET and is reacting quickly.

MS might be shooting itself in the foot in other areas, but ASP.NET could very well become its shining star in the world of business development.



>I certainly agree that MS development in the business world is still and will continue to be thriving in .NET and .ASPnet (as you know that was what I was doing when I worked up the street from you :-) C# is very solid and the VS IDE just gets better and better. That's what I meant about MS as a schizophrenic company. When they are good, they are very very good. When they aren't they are Vista.
>
>But do you see WPF as gaining a lot of traction? Is there still interest in Silverlight?
>
>Don't you think the HMTL5/Jquery UI / business layer is going to gain the greatest acceptance wiht ASP .NET apps using MVC or WebServices and EF?
>
>
>>>>I would love to see some stats on where developers are betting their money/time/training efforts
>>
>>Based on what I see in this area in the business world, there are large numbers of very talented developers placing large bets on .NET in general and ASP.NET in particular.
>>The reason is simple.. they make tons of money at it.
>>At the .NET conferences I attend, large employers pay for the privilege of begging people in the audience to come to work for them.
>>At one recent conference with over 300 in attendance, the employer asked anyone looking for work to raise hands and none went up.
>>The real high-end people can just about name their price.
>>
>>These developers are primarily servicing large companies with large long-standing investments in the MS world. If anything, those companies are deepening those investments.
>>
>>
>>On the other hand, if you go to Silicon Valley and mention ASP.NET, you'll be laughed out of the state.
>>
>>One of these days, I suspect, the two worlds will start to merge, but for now they are quite different animals.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>>>>>Did you listen to anything Microsoft said about WIn8? And why do you think upgrades were $40?
>>>>>
>>>>>I thought the upgrade at $40 was a good idea - which they rolled back to $100 +. So as Win 8 became more familiar as new boxes were sold with it, current Win7 users who might have been expected to consider upgrading would become less likely to do so as the price became steeper, and those early adopters who just couldn't wait to upgrade for whatever reason and would have paid $100 got it for $40.
>>>>>
>>>>>I think MS is greatly in need of adult supervision.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Perhaps they are just testing new models - trying to build pressure for the now yearly new release some hint at ?
>>>>More interesting IMO is when will they drop XP from the update offer ;-)
>>>
>>>I think what they are building is indifference. The Win8 users will be people who did not already own a power desktop and laptop last year and will get a new OS with a new box and greet the new OS with a resounding "What-ever".
>>>
>>>Meanwhile new sales will be Android and iOS and many people who see "devices" as big phones/tablets of different form factors will not even be looking for an MS product.
>>>
>>>I would love to see some stats on where developers are betting their money/time/training efforts. My bet is those who develop for business etc are looking at an HTML5/javascript webstack to serve traditional ( SQL, Oracle ) DBMS - or not - and those who want to develop consumer products are focused almost entirely on non-MS solutions.
>>>
>>>Life is too short to put too much of it into learning to develop for "Metro" or some other flavor of the week that may evaporate before you make a dime off of it.