I think the choice to use MS or any stack boils down to the community underneath it. The licensing costs for SQL Server 2005 could be prohibitive for a startup, but there is a perpetual opportunity to write a LINQ provider for MySQL, or use NHibernate to persist to a host of free database products. Using Visual Studio Express alongside open-source tools does work (with the current exception of Silverlight 2), but the cost of a standard version is fairly modest. The .NET Framework is powerful, and free; whether startups choose to use it depends on how well the community provides the tools and guidance, which is the same for any community. I think we’ll see more and more startups choosing MS alongside more community tools surfacing around some of the “good eggs” like LINQ, WCF, and Silverlight 2.

I think the choice to use MS or any stack boils down to the community underneath it. The licensing costs for SQL Server 2005 could be prohibitive for a startup, but there is a perpetual opportunity to write a LINQ provider for MySQL, or use NHibernate to persist to a host of free database products. Using Visual Studio Express alongside open-source tools does work (with the current exception of Silverlight 2), but the cost of a standard version is fairly modest. The .NET Framework is powerful, and free; whether startups choose to use it depends on how well the community provides the tools and guidance, which is the same for any community. I think we’ll see more and more startups choosing MS alongside more community tools surfacing around some of the “good eggs” like LINQ, WCF, and Silverlight 2.