Microsoft Launches Free Web Software Eco-System

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft, inspired perhaps by the ease of selecting and installing iPhone apps, has taken a similar approach to gather back market share of its IIS web server in a predominantly Apache/PHP market. 10 open source CMS, gallery, wiki, and blog tools were chosen to populate the eco-system, dubbed Web App Gallery. Developers must agree to principles and can now submit their PHP or .NET application for inclusion. Once an application is in the gallery, Windows users use Microsoft Web Platform Installer, released in a keynote at MIX this week, which inspects the the local system, and installs and configures dependencies like the IIS webserver, PHP, URL re-writers, and file permissions. Screenshots show this to be quite easy for the typical computer user. This could provide some real competition for WAMP and Linux shell install processes."

But...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it run Linux?

This just in...

[Anonymous Coward]

Spider invites flies into web. Film at 11.

Re:Microsoft and what?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not every day you see "Microsoft" and "Free" in the same headline.

Nonsense [thepiratebay.org]

Re:Microsoft and what?

[Andr T.]

It's not every day you see "Microsoft" and "Free" in the same headline.

Search for 'Microsoft' in google. One of the top results will be "Microsoft - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"

Big deal.

[Red Flayer]

"Microsoft, inspired[1] perhaps by the ease of selecting and installing iPhone apps, has taken a similar approach to gather back market share of its IIS web server in a predominantly Apache/PHP market. 10 open source[2] CMS, gallery, wiki, and blog tools were chosen to populate the eco-system, dubbed Web App Gallery.

[1] I think submitter mis-spelled "feeling threatened".

[2] Big deal. Two open source tools? How many closed-source tools are in the "ecosystem"?

Admiral Ackbar has a comment about this.

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's a trap!"

Can you avoid lock in?

[EvilIntelligence]

And since it only runs on Windows, its just more reason send Microsoft some more money! Oh wait! I LOOKED at an ASP page earlier. I think I owe Ballmer another quarter....

Re:Not needed for server apps

[iamhigh]

Pffft. Real administrators don't download others software... they rewrite everything from scratch themselves.

Re:Big deal.

[Reality Master 201]

[1] I think submitter mis-spelled "feeling threatened".

I think you misspelled "misspelled." ;-)

Web Software Eco-System

[nizo]

If it is an entire Eco-System it must include the viruses too I assume?

Re:Microsoft and what?

[Kz]

Only they show up late with products that are usually tied to their OS platform and maybe a little dorky.

Doesn't that describe IE?

Re:Microsoft and what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't Microsoft Developer an Oxymoron?