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Comment by jsprogrammer | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft creating their own version means the technology is viable? I think people have been using 'the technology' for years, without any input from Microsoft. It doesn't need to be anointed by Microsoft to be 'viable'.

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For the tech enthusiast and the visionaries, you are correct; It is a very viable technology. However the majority of people that deploy software are rather conservative and unless they see a market leader such as Microsoft with a solution they don't deem the technology safe to use. This is well documented in a lot of literature like Crossing the Chasm but can be observed frequently if you work at a larger non-tech oriented company. Whether or not this notion is actually correct is debatable but it doesn't change the validity of it.

This also means a lot of Microsoft shops who have a lot of Docker enthusiasts will be able to pitch this to thier bosses, who might not have been on board prior to this since it wasn't an enterprise MS product.

This will open a TON of doors for everybody.

I think that when a "market leader" finally adopts technologies that were in use for more than a decade by their competition, it's safe to assume the tech got mainstream...

BSD had jails for well over a decade before Linux containerization took off; Microsoft entering the space could very well be good for all participants. A rising tide, etc.

To be fair, there were things like usermode linux (UML) that were (roughly) contemporary to jail, circa late 2001 / early 2002.

Assume a generous reading of the comment, like, "It must be good if Microsoft is jumping on the bandwagon."

> It doesn't need to be anointed by Microsoft to be 'viable'

Well, in a lot of corporations its viable when the big analyst companies say its viable (Gartner and Forrester Research) and they tend to be "nudged" by Microsoft. It once was does IBM have an offering in this space and then it became does Microsoft.

// one more soul crushing things done in corporate IT

It doesn't mean it wasn't viable before, it's just another piece of evidence, which many more people will be exposed to, that it is viable.

> Microsoft creating their own version means the technology is viable?

Keep in mind nearly all technologies are used mostly at non-tech companies (e.g. far more software is written by developers not working for a software company) and the software/IT teams at these companies usually prefer solutions from the large/major tech names they know/trust. Microsoft having their own version of something means a lot more businesses will consider using it.

Microsoft creating their own version means it will be perceived as viable by many more people.

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