Virtualisation.... Monopoly's Achilles heel.

"..Microsoft is hitting some problems because its architecture requires deployment on Windows servers,.."

Actually, their problem is not that it is a requirement, it is just their [selfish] wish. And it will therefore condemn them to follow Web 2.0 and ITs Subsequent Higher Order Control Kernels .........Shock troops in OSINT Virtual Root Servers ....... even as they realise that the Windows servers are rebuilding ITs architecture to server Open Source Coders....... Programs/Programmers who simply inject some Clean Spirit into the Internet for IT to be read and accepted as being a Beta Truth via the Sharing of Exposed previously Hidden Truths Servering to a Monopolising rather than Unifying Entity Structure.

It would appear that the Fourth Reich ambitions of such an Entity will go the very same way as all dominant/predominant regimes before it ........ collapse and break up .... unless of course, they can Control IT with a Total Information Awareness System. That would necessarily mean a Buy-in to a System which Delivers such a Internet Control System for quite obviously they do not have one....... and that in turn would suggest that the captain and crew of the MS ship are exactly as a ship in Reality ....... all at C in a much bigger Picture and subject to Universal Virtual Forces way beyond their present Ken/Zen.

And the Solution? Oh, that is Easy. They just would only need to reinvent themselves in Open Source...... where all the Innovative, Who Dares Wins ProAction is.

And how to do that? Oh, that is easy too .... and right up their street/Business Intelligence model. Decide what IT would be worth to them, and then pay the person the small fortune required to deliver IT for them.

The alternative is that someone else will, and Microsoft will be merely a stepping stone to another completely revised Operating System out of their Control, rather than their being a Keystone in ITs Control.... And all that hard work for nothing, for as we know, Virtualisation is a Reality, Intelligently Designed by Programmers working with Machines. The SMARTer ones may be able to/are able to Morph at Will between such Created Realities in Order to Stream them in Parallel rather than have them Conflicting in Chaos.

Linux/BSD Implementations

It would probably be a mistake to foget that Linux/BSD/Mac implementations of .NET exist, making use of the Mono project which Novell now run and administer.

The MS Javascript support is not great, though...

Felons

MS has been found guilty - guilty - of breaking the US antitrust laws. It is a corporate felon, and any standards body would do well to refuse it admittance on that basis.