Here's the deal:
Despite having some awesome tech and many talented employees, Microsoft as a corporation has a history of shitting on developers, smaller companies and independents. There's a history of threatening OSS, monopoly abuse, abandoning APIs, bad certs, crapware, gross mismanagement, ignoring constructive requests and a very bad case of Not Invented Here. And they do have an history of astro-turfing and aggressive social media promotion.
Disclosure:
I've primarily worked as a MS stack developer and admin for over two decades. But I've also used a full spectrum of other technologies over the years, too. I've been agnostic and objective when it come to the industry, but I've eaten enough excuses from Redmond. There's good alternatives, I'm exploring more of them.
Abandoning APIs to me is a sign of bad management, and that's what I really can't stand any more. I have spent my career building apps side by side for OS X and Windows and I just can't stomach Windows any more. The thing is, unless you're really lucky, you probably have worked at a few places that had really bad management. I know I have. When you get the same vibe from the company that manages your IDE and complete computing (operating system) experience it's a terrible feeling. Take Metro for example. I can't stand the thought of developing for it because I have this sinking feeling that in 2 years Microsoft will have to abandon it and I will have wasted hours of my life that I can never get back. Conversely, take Objective-C. I have been greatly rewarded for taking the time to learn that. Something tells me that isn't going anywhere. Granted, any company will have some misses and drop things, but Microsoft it's like loading the barrel of a gun with 5 bullets and putting it to your head.
Disclaimer: This is opinionated commentary partially describing the bad feelings that I actually feel towards Microsoft after all these years. They are more emotional and less factual, but I think the fact that I arrived here associating these bad feelings towards Microsoft shows what a deep hole they are in with developers.
Disclosure: I've primarily worked as a MS stack developer and admin for over two decades. But I've also used a full spectrum of other technologies over the years, too. I've been agnostic and objective when it come to the industry, but I've eaten enough excuses from Redmond. There's good alternatives, I'm exploring more of them.