MS loves PHP developers

OK, so that's probably a pretty provocative statement in some quarters. And while it's not my place to speak for our official policy, I think it's fair to say that we would love for all web developers to be using ASP.NET...

Here's the thing, though. There's a whole world of web solutions out there...including PHP, which is pretty popular, and the reality is that we need to support developers on Windows, whether or not they're using our technology of choice.

So I thought it was pretty cool when I read my colleague Peter's post on a partnership between Microsoft and Zend to improve the performance and stability of PHP on Windows. As Peter says:

That's right, you read that correctly!  Microsoft & Zend will be working together on making PHP run better on Windows.  Actually, they've already been working together on it the past six months. 

So the next time someone tells you that Microsoft only cares about .net developers, keep this in mind.

Developers, developers, developers, developers.
Developers, developers, developers, developers.
Developers, developers, developers, developers.

It's as true now as it was then...it's all about the developers, and making sure that our platform is the best place to be, even if you don't use all of our stuff.

Update:

KeithS, Scott Guthrie, and Brian Goldfarb have more on this, including a discussion of FastCGI for IIS7, which is one of the key technologies that will help improve the performance and reliability of PHP on Windows.