API Wars UPDATE: http://www.dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/stefandemetz/archive/2005/08/27/132177.aspx
Joel Spolsky wrote a recent article "How Microsoft Lost the API Wars"
While I think that .NET has been a huge improvement to the scattered Windows APIs..NET hasn't impermeated yet all software coming from MS, even considering Longhorn and its subsystems.I'd say about 60% is done by the time Longhorn is out.
I am not so bothered about compatibility, more about the difficulty in swapping VBA/VBS with .NET code.There are still a huge number of MS appplications relying on these VB dialects. One of the most important one are Office, Access especially. There is currently NO .NET in access, NO possibility to add .NET code inside Access and No replacement of Access and NO alternative to the easy of building forms like Access has in .NET.
Another issue is a lack of widely available consumer(non IT pro) oriented .NET desktop applications and freeware,
be it that .NET code is easily decomposable.
A third issue are managed API able to use the most used MS applications coming with the default Windows installation: IM(Messenger), and Outlook(before the W2K version). Without these it is very cumbersome to build interesting add-ins to these apps. APIs are also missing for P2P, BITS and other interesting tecnologies installed on XP. Groove or a potential Sharepoint (a personal edition with desktop 2 desktop) are good, but not widely used by consumers.
One glaring miss is the unavailability of a Patching API: It should be pretty easy to classify(by OS version and level) and expose the patches and their path with a webservice,to be run on the desktop with minimal fuss. It surely would be a huge hit.
Also other areas need improvement:
Exchange server has a huge installed base, but no managed APIs to use.
Desktop management has almost no managed APIs, unless you count WMI and ACLs with v2.0
Now, MS biggest API foe is the Apache Foundation, collecting a bunch of non-MS technologies API, ranging from Java, PHP and other programming languages which are available on all on non MS OSes.
What MS should do in the short term:
1) to wrap legacy APIs with managed code even if only as beta quality first
2) bundle all the scattered managed APIs of its products(like Sharepoint,Bilztalk, MMS, MCMS et all) into one neat pack for download
3) favour packaging and distribution of .NET open source libraries developed by MS(Application blocks), its employees(like Ghenghis By SellsBrothers, .TEXT) or well known community members.
Longterm , IMHO, Longhorn will do the rest and prove Joel Spolsky wrong.
http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/dbox/default.aspx?key=2004-06-17T09:05:03Z
http://weblogs.asp.net/rholloway/archive/2004/06/16/157725.aspx
http://weblog.sinteur.com/index.php?p=5585
http://weblogs.asp.net/tmarman/archive/2004/06/16/157148.aspx
http://weblogs.asp.net/pgielens/archive/2004/06/16/157297.aspx
http://www.oliviertravers.com/archives/2004/06/17/microsoft-lost-the-api-war-not-so-fast/
http://www.rittman.net/archives/000958.html
http://pdcbloggers.net/Longhorn/3219.item
http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2004/06/19.html
http://denrael.typepad.com/the_denrael_project/2004/06/joel_on_softwar.html
http://www.blogpulse.com/04_06_17/link_4.html
http://wesnerm.blogs.com/net_undocumented/2004/06/scobles_respons.html
http://redmonk.net/2004/06/17/how-microsoft-lost-the-api-war
http://patricklogan.blogspot.com/2004/06/microsoft-has-chosen-their-own.html
http://pdcbloggers.net/Longhorn/3219.item
http://www.longhornblogs.com/robert/archive/2004/06/18/3731.aspx
http://weblogs.asp.net/kennykerr/archive/2004/06/17/158272.aspx
http://www.cowpimp.com/archives/2004/06/17/api-wars/
feedster links
http://www.feedster.com/search.php?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=api+wars&sort=date