Guess what eweek? You just lost a subscriber because they're sick of the propaganda articles you keep publishing.

Microsoft invented component programming. yes, they bought Visual Basic from Alan Cooper, but that was just the visual programming aspect. MS added the installable components part of it and I'm told that it was actually Bill Gates' idea.

This is part of the whole Developers Developers Developers thing, but it's always been important to them to make everything as programmable as possible and that has served them well, and badly, over the years.

This article was pretty biased, not to mention wrong. My list of the top ten innovations:

1) Let anyone write software for the platform, and make it as easy as possible. Microsoft has been kinder and more accommodating to developers than any other OS vendor. Microsoft has a nice platform SDK to download to write applications for the Windows platform, and they have from the beginning. And there are free tools to get you started. Apple has recently released SDKs for the various components of its operating system, and Linux/Unix have never had anything geared towards applications development. Microsoft encourages business shops to write software for the desktop. Microsoft even has an incubator program to help ISVs get started where they can get high end development tools for five people for less than $500 a year for the first two years. This has led to more software for Windows than any other platform.

2) .Net Anyone who has looked at .Net agrees that it was a great leap in both desktop and web development. Microsoft didn't invent component programming (CORBA on Unix/Linux had this long before COM), but .Net definitely got it right and is still the easiest platform to both write and consume web services.

3) Add the features being asked for even if they are "make it work like X" features. Microsoft gets a lot of flack for this, but the reality is everyone sees features in other applications that they wish were in the software they are using. Microsoft hasn't been afraid to add these regardless of the criticism.

4) Make it easy for businesses. Businesses buy computers and other devices 10 to 1 over consumers. Microsoft has focused a lot of their effort to make their OS and applications easy to distribute and manage over corporate networks. Anyone who has done support will tell you that managing Mac and Linux desktops requires 3x more people than managing the same number of Windows machines. But Microsoft hasn't just done this with their own applications, they have made it easy for developers to bake management infrastructure into their applications with click once deployment, auto update and WMI easily integrated into third party applications. This is probably the single biggest reason for Microsoft's market share.

5) Make it easy for partners. If you are a partner with Microsoft, you will have access to training, software and technical support. Microsoft will do everything possible to make you successful because they realize that their partners success is the key to their success. The action pack gives thousands of dollars worth of software for less than $500 a year.

6) If it is essential, put it in the OS. The web browser is a great example of this, and Microsoft isn't the only vendor that has made this realization. Mac and Linux also ship with their own browsers and email clients because these applications are essential for anyone using a computer.

7) Don't wait for the standard. This has also gotten Microsoft some flack, but the reality is it was the correct choice. As an example, neither Microsoft nor Netscape waited for web standards before adding features to their browsers. Netscape added its assortment of layer and other tags when it wanted to allow pages to provide rich overlapping content, and Microsoft added its interpretation of the z-index present in css. This allowed businesses writing applications on intranets (where they could control the browser choice) to immediately provide this functionality which again led to the adoption.

8) Start small, plan big. There is an old axiom that you should never buy version 1 of a Microsoft product. SQL Server is a great example of this (although I wouldn't have recommended versions 1 - 6.5). Microsoft bought the initial product from Sybase and sold it with only a fraction of the features to call it an Enterprise database system. Microsoft planned out how to expand this however, and SQL 2005 and soon SQL 2008 have features that give Oracle a run for its money.

9) XAML. I love the very idea of XAML because it brings the styling of web applications to the desktop platform. With its integration into Silverlight, it is available for the web cross platform.

10) No technology before its time. Back in the day there were two OSs with any real market share: Windows and OS2. OS2 was a 32 bit operating system, and liked throwing this up to Microsoft. It took years before Microsoft brought out their own 32 bit OS. Why? Because the hardware just wasn't ready for it yet. The same can be said for Microsoft's entry into the internet, they waited for the bandwidth to catch up to allow some compelling applications. Microsoft has a knack for sizing the market up and determining when it is right to bring out a software product.

Wow - John Bailey, well written and thoughtful list.

It makes eWeek's bias top 10 look sad and pathetic by comparison.

COM is much older than CORBA, several years at least, and non-COM components in VB go back before that. I'm sure of this, I wrote about all of these developments contemporaneously.

I agree with most of your other points.

You have to be kidding! Did the author just arrive to earth? I honestly can't find the words (and the time) to begin describing everything that is wrong with the article, the author and eweek.

The original article is slanderous (but a small germ of truth); John Bailey's list is quite good and does contribute to an understanding of how Microsoft succeeds. Microsoft has had both innovation in software design and aggressive sales practices. The root of this is that Microsoft was slow in recognizing the extent of its own success. For reasons best left to sociologists, our society favors the underdog (whether a rising star or a sinking failure) over the leader. Once Microsoft became a leader it became hated (especially by Apple fanboys). By the way, Google is starting to get the same treatment.

.NET's multi-language runtime is definitely an innovation. Java chose "one language - all operating systems (poorly)"; Microsoft chose "many languages (excellently) - one operating system". As for standards? history is written by the winner. Standards make sense as the problem domain matures. Premature standards locks folks into suboptimal solutions.

I'm rambling a bit, so I'll finish with one thing the original article did get right - Microsoft was one of the first to realize that software had intrinsic value and wasn't just a freebie to sell hardware. The current tension over proprietary vs. open source software is really about if and how software will be subsidized by other activities. There is no "free" - you pay either explicitly or you pay hidden charges that subsidize what you think is free. Kudos to Microsoft for focusing on creating software as a value center in its own right and trying to package it in sensible chunks for consumption.

Typical biased stupidity and half-truths from eweek. What can you expect? I'm surprised SJVN didn't contribute to this one.

I actually like a lot of John's list, and I definitely could have included 3,4 and 5 on my list.

Where did this author come from? Microsoft invented the developer experience. They provided a lot of tools, SDKs, debuggers, technical articles to make development fun on Windows. I agree with John for most of the items on the list.