Bonum Certa Men Certa

Is Miguel de Icaza Preparing for a Career at Microsoft?

Summary: The Microsoft MVP who is also a vice president at Novell says what he would do if he was in charge of Vista 8

WE rarely use question marks in headlines, but this one almost begs for it. In fact, the news came to our attention by this good blog whose headline asks, "Miguel de Icaza: Secret Desire To Head Windows 8?" To quote the crux of the argument regarding this ego trip:



Miguel De Icaza is a known Microsoft supporter. He is often criticized for his endorsement of Microsoft product -- he was heavily criticized for endorsing Microsoft's controversial OOXML standarad.

Many call him a traitor as he leads the Mono project to implement Microsoft's new .NET development platform on Linux and Unix-like platforms. Now, Icaza returns, suggesting what Microsoft should do to improve the next version of Windows, rumored as Windows 8.

He goes at length taking pains and suggesting what Microsoft should do to improve. Wow! No wonder its coming from Icaza, the long time supporter of Microsoft.


This whole vapourware routine around Vista 8 is a subject we wrote about twice at the beginning of this week [1, 2]. It's funny that after all those years, Microsoft MVP de Icaza is still fascinated with everything from Microsoft. “At Microsoft I learned the truth about ActiveX and COM and I got very interested in it inmediately [sic]," he wrote about a decade ago and nowadays he drools over Silverlight (de Icaza is also pushing some more Apple stuff this week). Several days ago IDG published this article:

Novell's de Icaza: 'People are scared of installing software on Windows'



[...]

While de Icaza may be right that developers and users harbor concerns about Windows, it's unlikely the developer community would reject the App Store concept entirely. Microsoft's .NET Framework is popular with developers, and Windows' mammoth market share will likely lure in developers, even those concerned about making applications run properly on Windows.


Why is he so concerned about Microsoft's monopoly prevailing (his work on Mono and Moonlight contributes to that)? Why is he still trying to help Microsoft? We don't wish to end with a question, so instead we'll suggest that de Icaza views Microsoft as an ally, not a competitor, despite all that we know.

"I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense -- I deserve it."

--Be's CEO Jean-Louis Gassée



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