Same strategy as always. Rebrand current products and call it new. This is not Visual Studio as known from Windows but Xamarin Studio rebranded. Title should be Microsoft release Xamarin update...

In fairness it seems like a pretty big update.

Perhaps quality? Having developers who know the environment they are developing for instead of a lot of one-size-fits-all apps.

You can do it if you're the only supplier of a given service but as a customer you will not get my money in a multi player game if I smell you took the shortcut or have no idea what my platform is capable off.

Because Windows is loosing as a dev platform for web and mobile. Enterprise developers are in control as enterprise already did their lock-in with the Office365 platform and surrounding technologies. Don't worry they close down again when enough have come back.

Why is this being discussed like Ubuntu is the only Linux edition available? You seriously think CentOS, Arch or *BSD users will jump ship because of this?

No, but people wanting a stable no-fuss desktop with everything (from laptop sleep to device drivers) working, access to proprietary software and all kinds of 3rd party drivers available, will.

I use OS X mostly because of the UNIX underpinnings. I could not care less for Linux of the desktop, despite having used it since 1997 (and having a history with UNIX going back to Sun OS and HP-UX).

If Windows gets good enough with its basic unix userland support, and has a decent shell, I'll be very tempted to try it.

After all, any actual deployment etc, I do on Linux servers and VMs (vagrant etc) -- no reason to pollute one's base desktop system with development libs and setups.

> No, but people wanting a stable no-fuss desktop with everything (from laptop sleep to device drivers) working, access to proprietary software and all kinds of 3rd party drivers available, will.

Have you used a recent Linux distro? They are mainly stable and no fuss, and they don't require you to run proprietary software.

>and they don't require you to run proprietary software.

Only I specifically asked the inverse: to be able to run all the proprietary software I want.

Besides, that's always the case -- "a recent Linux distro" is always supposed to fix all of these problems, I've been hearing that (and trying in vain) ever since 2000 or so. And I use Linux on the server side just fine (and actually have several desktop Linux installations too, since 1997 and RedHat 5.3 IIRC, just not as my basic everyday work/fun desktop, because they're dreadful still).

I must say you are quite delusional to argue that Linux desktop is still in the same state as it was in 1997.

I must say it is quite delusional to argue that I wrote that the "Linux desktop is still in the same state as it was in 1997".

I never wrote that, and it is indeed much improved.

What I wrote is another thing: that the total parity with proprietary desktop OSes (Windows, OS X) "just works-iness" is always "in another distro" or "a release away".

And there's another problem: proprietary desktop OSs haven't stood still in their 1997 state either. They are a moving target.

You clearly don't work with Microsoft on a daily basis in a enterprise setup... I'll fill you in. The new lock-in is Office 365 with Intune/SCCM and Azure. We are in the extinct phase of having better management options in Intune for Office and surrounding technologies and enterprise IT will see this as an advantage over choosing another MDM/MAM vendor. Step one done for still controlling productivity apps and device management. Now it's getting developer mindshare and focus back on the Windows ecosystem. Pretty easy in enterprise as we just did a lock-in with Office 365/Intune. They still throw their weight around and their key/technical account managers must have missed the memo saying to be more open for other vendors/partners. So they may look nice but don't make the mistake of thinking there isn't a plan behind.

Don't be a twat. Someone posted a link to genuinely useful info that many people wouldn't have been aware of. So it's not linkbait. Look up the definition.

Totally agreed with the content, but please avoid name calling on HN.

The civility rule here has nothing to do with points.

My point is that a bunch of people favoured my comment over any civility rule.

That often happens, but it's the rules, not the votes, that are dispositive.

HN is a constitutional democracy. The constitution is https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Please abide by it.

Im not sure how the title is click-bait, can you explain?

For me click-bait would mean "Microsoft releases software for free! You will never believe what the 4th iso contains!" or something to that effect

haters gonna hate, some people don't like to see "Microsoft" and "free" in the same sentence, unless it's something bad about the company. Of course MS does this for its own business, and why not, that doesn't make it any click-bait title...

Indeed. When you get out of your small "coder" box and into the enterprise layer where the negotiations and implementations are happening you will know nothing has changed in the way Microsoft is doing business. Their TAM and KAM layer is exactly the same as the use to be. They are just moving the layers for vendor lock-in now.

What are TAM and KAM? Surprisingly, not google-trivial.

wow the head up my own butt is high in this one... :O

If you run it in a VM on your Mac, you can take advantage of any host-level full-disk encryption and avoid needing Bitlocker. (Of course, you probably want to pay the $50 or so for VMware Fusion, if you're going that approach.)

Yes, hadn't thought of that actually.

But it was mostly an example. I already have all the Windows versions I want available through work.

Where are you getting the $307 figure for Windows 10 Pro? The full cost of a brand-new Win10 Pro license is $199 according to Microsoft's website.

In the Microsoft store for my country the price is 2099 DKK equal to 307.41 USD.

Yes everything is expensive here... :/