>The point is that .NET doesn't provide nearly as much application productivity gains as may be implied by their over-the-top advertising.

And you know this how? Because an article says that developing applications from scratch costs time and money? I have never EVER seen a development platform where this was not true.

Also, what productivity gains are you talking about? The advertising you're talking about is targeted towards the end users of .NET software and their productivity. The time and money spent developing a .NET application has absolutely no relevance on how productive the end users can be on the .NET platform.

>Also, consultants who have to answer the "What about .NET? Microsoft say it's the best." question can bookmark this article as a reality check.

Are you sure this article even relates to what you're talking about? First of all, there is no supporting evidence or logic to the small single quote from a CEO (a non-developer!). Second, what is being discussed here is .NET as whole. This means that the "C" grade Gates gives is not for VS.NET, C#, CLR, ect. ect., its for things like Office NGO, My .NET Web Services, Passport and the rest of those.

If I asked a developer "what about .NET" and they pointed me to this article I don't think I'd be able to take that person seriouslly for a while.