I haven't bashed Microsoft for a long time, and I won't any time soon. However, this development has me worried.
There's a big difference between engaging the developer community with great products and purchasing important services that the developer community relies on.
Microsoft has succeeded many times with products and services they've built themselves, and with products they've purchased, but how often have they succeeded with services they've purchased?
Most of those are products. Of the services you mentioned, I would only call Hotmail a success in the sense that there wasn’t a net detriment to users because of the purchase.
There's a big difference between engaging the developer community with great products and purchasing important services that the developer community relies on.
Microsoft has succeeded many times with products and services they've built themselves, and with products they've purchased, but how often have they succeeded with services they've purchased?