Making Azure more appealing to Java and Open Source Developers.

06 January 2011

Microsoft is increasingly reaching out to developers who use third party languages and application stacks with initiatives and announcements like Microsoft plans to make Java a first-class citizen on Windows Azure and PHP on IIS7.

Many developers are surprised when they see the extent of the Interoperability Bridges and Labs Center.

With the worldwide recession, consolidation, migration and evolution are the new watch words. Not many people can afford File-New and people are squeezing value from their legacy applications. I think its an interesting time for Microsoft. As we move to the Cloud and Platform as a Service, the operating system is becoming less and less relevant. It's value for money and cost saving that matters now.

Ironically, many non .NET applications are arguably easier to port to Azure because they have less Windows specific dependencies. They don't write to the registry or need elevated privileges or sophisticated installation. Many Java apps are very self contained with a clear abstraction over their operating environment.

But what would it take to make Azure more appealing to a wider development community? Here are some initial thoughts:

1 Lower Cost of Entry

Yes there are deals, incentives and extra small instances, but it's still too expensive to make a long term commitment to hosting a simple blog on Azure. Extra small instances are still in Beta.

Developer Fabric isn't a sufficient starting point and isn't cross platform. Developers need to use the cloud for real.

If you appeal to geeks through their side projects and spare time hacks they'll transfer their skills back to their day jobs.

Azure needs a "loss leader".

2 More TCP Ports

Five ports really isn't enough. Java people use sockets for everything from AJP, JDPA, LDAP, Web, SSL etc. If you want to use the new Remote Desktop facilities too, you have even less to play with.

3. SSH

Telnet and FTP aren't secure and RDP is overkill for quick systems admin tasks. SSH access is fast, flexible and secure - why isn't it included as an option with Windows?

4. A Good Porting Layer

I know we have Cygwin, MingW and VC++ but whatever happened to Microsoft's Services for Unix and POSIX support?

    ./configure
    make 
    make install

The above works seamlessly on most Unixes including Linux and Mac OS X - so why does the build have to be complicated for Windows?

5. A Package Management System

apt-get install 

on Linux and

 brew install

on OS X - what about Windows?

Whatever happened to Garrett Serack and CoApp?

A package management system is not the same thing as an App Store!