Episode 7: Why Don’t Startups Run On Microsoft?

Posted by admin
Posted in Uncategorized, podcast

In this episode of Herding Code, we discuss the pro’s and con’s of building a startup on the Microsoft stack. We talk about a lot of issues:

Licensing cost
Availability and cost of developers
Development environments and tools
Relative costs of software vs. development time
Thoughts on whether Microsoft should ship Visual Studio Express with Windows
Those few companies who start on one stack and switch as they get larger
How, in the end, it all comes down to execution

Along the way, K. Scott regales us with the tale of his run-in with the FBI, flees the podcast, and finds a way to sneak back on the call. Shenanigans!

Herding Code 7: Why don’t startups run on Microsoft? (Download)

Jul 03

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 10:34 pmand is filed under Uncategorized, podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Comments Episode 7: Why Don’t Startups Run On Microsoft?

Adam Kahtava

July 9th, 2008 at 9:33 am

Here’s a blog post on a similar topic: Five recommendations for starting a startup with ASP.NET: http://www.dimebrain.com/2008/04/five-recommenda.html
Adam Kahtava

July 9th, 2008 at 10:19 am

Enjoyed the show, but the ended did suck.. :) j/k Looking forward to the next episode.
admin

July 9th, 2008 at 6:27 pm

Thanks for the feedback, Adam! That’s a great post; I’d forgotten about it.
Daniel Crenna

July 13th, 2008 at 11:38 am

Well done!

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.
David Seruyange

July 14th, 2008 at 9:34 am

I offered some behavioral economics in a hypothesis on the topic: http://metadeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/07/predictably-irrational-startups-and.html