Google vs. Microsoft: One Developer's View

This article in the New York Times ponders Microsoft's seeming drift into irrelevance and quotes Google's Dave Girouard as saying, "The big difference in technology here is the pace of innovation." But as a developer using both Microsoft and Google technologies, I can tell you what the difference is.

When I wanted to develop a new service using Google's technology their first question was, "How can we help?" When I wanted to develop using Microsoft's their first question was, "Where's your check for $100,000?"

True story.

Comments

[timheuer]

100K?! ok seriously if it is a true story, validate with more data. which platform? how many servers, etc. sure, MSFT isn't free, but it certainly doesn't have a 100K entry fee. In fact our dev tools are available free...and in some instances so is the platform now for a while.

[Charlie Wood]

Tim-

I assure you it's a true story. The NDA Microsoft required me to sign before they would even divulge pricing (!) restricts me from providing any additional information.

You'll note we don't use any Microsoft technologies in our services.

-c