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Microsoft to turn .Net Micro Framework code, support over to the community

By Mary Jo Foley | May 6, 2009, 3:51pm PDT

Summary

Microsoft is turning the source code for its embedded .Net Micro Framework over to the community and slowly withdrawing from that business, company officials are confirming.

Topics

Team, MSN, Microsoft Corp., .Net Micro Framework, .Net, Application Servers, Middleware, Software Development, Software/Web Development, Enterprise Software, Software, Mary Jo Foley

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Mary-Jo Foley

Biography

Mary-Jo Foley

Mary-Jo Foley

Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 20 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She has kept close tabs on Microsoft strategy, products and technologies for the past 10 years. In the late 1990s, she penned the award-winning "At The Evil Empire" column for ZDNet, and more recently the Microsoft Watch blog for Ziff Davis.

Got a tip? Send her an email with your rants, rumors, tips and tattles. Confidentiality guaranteed.

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Microsoft is turning the source code for its embedded .Net Micro Framework over to the community and slowly withdrawing from that business, company officials are confirming.

(Update on May 7: Microsoft disagrees with my characterization of this move as “withdrawing from the business.” But I’m standing by what I said, while making it clear company officials didn’t say they are withdrawing. To me, if you cut a bunch of a team and turn your source code over to external parties, you are not signaling that you’re continuing to stand firmly behind a product.

A spokesperson sent me this additional statement today: “The team views the new business model as an opportunity to accelerate the adoption of the .NET Micro Framework technology. Microsoft’s objective is to create a uniform programming model and tool chain that spans software development from very small devices to the most sophisticated servers.”)

On the rumored list of teams most heavily impacted by second wave of Microsoft layoffs announced on May 5 was the .Net Micro Framework team — as well as the related MSN Direct unit. Indeed, both groups were affected, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed on May 6.

The .Net Micro Framework is one of a number of embedded platforms Microsoft has licensed to third parties and made available to teams inside the company. Others include Windows CE and Windows XPe. The .Net Micro Framework was at the heart of the Microsoft SPOT watches, some newfangled coffee makers and other consumer devices. (MSN Direct, a wireless information service, provided real-time updates to those watches, and, more recently GPS systems and Windows Mobile devices.) The .Net Micro Framework was aimed primarily at very small, low-power devices that couldn’t accommodate the .Net Compact Framework or another operating environment.

Here’s what’s happening with the .Net Micro Framework, post yesterday’s layoff announcement, according to a company spokesperson:

“On the .NET Micro Framework, there will be changes to the business model.
1) Microsoft will eliminate the royalties from the distribution of the .NET Micro Framework product and make the porting kit available at no cost.
2) Microsoft also intends to give customers and the community access to the source code.

“They will continue to support existing customers according to any agreements that they have in place with them, and will honor their lifecycle support pledge at http://support.microsoft.com/?pr=lifecycle. Forums continue to be available at MSDN. After moving to the community model, new customers will be supported by the community.

“As part of this change in business model, some members of the team were impacted by yesterday’s job eliminations. The existing group will move to the .NET Framework team.

“While the MSN Direct group was impacted by yesterday’s job eliminations, they will continue to maintain the current MSN Direct service and invest in developing a low cost receiver for multiple devices. Customers will continue to receive support as it is available today.”

An interesting side note, re: the .Net Micro Framework. Among the list of processors supported by that platform are the very low power ARM7 and ARM9. There have been questions lately as to when and whether — and how — Microsoft is planning to support the ARM processor family, given that ARM chips are showing up in some netbooks. Microsoft has declined to comment on its Windows ARM-support plans.

Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

Disclosure

Mary-Jo Foley

Freelance journalist/blogger Mary Jo Foley has nothing to disclose. WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). I do not own Microsoft stock or stock in any of its partners or competitors. I have no business ventures that are sponsored by/funded by Microsoft or any of its partners or competitors. I have not accepted any consulting funds from Microsoft, any of its partners or its competitors for any studies/projects.

Biography

Mary-Jo Foley

Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 20 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She has kept close tabs on Microsoft strategy, products and technologies for the past 10 years. In the late 1990s, she penned the award-winning "At The Evil Empire" column for ZDNet, and more recently the Microsoft Watch blog for Ziff Davis.

Got a tip? Send her an email with your rants, rumors, tips and tattles. Confidentiality guaranteed.

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Talkback Most Recent of 14 Talkback(s)

  • YES! YES!!!! This is awesome!
    This means they now have a serious answer for things like Arduino solutions that rely on a things like PureData.

    .Net Micro was the obvious choice - but since it was licensed, it wasn't really usable for things like hobbyists or free devices.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    TheWerewolf
    05/06/2009 04:55 PM
  • Please help us stifle I.T. for free.
    We want you all to work very hard on this "community" project so that we can lock in as many as possible and then show off and tell lies and control the media with the money you helped us to make.

    By the way, we might mention your name in the credits list, I'll be editing it from my yacht.

    Thanks again.

    Microsoft : Your effort, our poisson.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    fr0thy2
    (Edited: 05/07/2009 04:49 AM)
  • The only lock in
    is a solution that works, and works well.
    Offer that on another platform and folks will use it.

    Funny how people like you talk about choice being good, until the best choice is MS.
    Then choice is just horrible.

    ZDNet Gravatar
    mdemuth
    05/07/2009 07:41 AM
  • Grasping at straws......
    No one is going to spend their TIME on writing free code for MS.

    People choose Open_Source for CHOICE not CHAINS.


    'Chains' we can believe sounds like our new 'Leader' who was elected by people wanting 'freebies'....
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Christian_<><
    05/07/2009 07:46 AM
  • A developing pattern
    My guess: Steve is returning to their two monopoly profit
    products, slashing their wasted USD8 billion a year R&D
    (why research when you can't develop?) so he can improve
    the MS bottom line before departing.

    For the MS's big wigs it is all how they're remembered.
    Like the little man that created nothing (copied plenty),
    abused million of consumers then forms a foundation (how very
    Rockefeller).

    No better time for competitors (Google, Oracle) to target
    margins on MS profitable products (windows and Office) - with
    OOo and WINE.

    IT is escaping the dark ages into a period of
    enlightenment. For those of us that remember IT before
    the evil descended it is a great time. Wouldn't want to be a MSCE
    though;-)
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Richard Flude
    (Edited: 05/06/2009 05:01 PM)
  • Speaking of "developing patterns"
    I've noticed you tend to use a lot of words to say pretty much nothing at all.

    How do you do that? is it practiced, or does it just come natually?

    happy
    ZDNet Gravatar
    John Zern
    05/06/2009 05:23 PM
  • Can't expect us all to match your contributions
    John Zern writes (02/01/07):
    "Steve Jobs must be a little nervous
    wasn't it not too long ago he was laughing as Zune had 2 percent of the
    market? In December it's up to 10.2 percent."
    http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-9595-0.html?
    forumID=1&threadID=29762&messageID=554293

    Nice work;-)
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Richard Flude
    (Edited: 05/06/2009 07:32 PM)
  • "(why research when you can't develop?)"
    Excellent, thanks for that!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    fr0thy2
    05/07/2009 04:50 AM
  • Whoa
    That porting kit's price earlier was $599.95!!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    anonymuos
    05/06/2009 11:06 PM
  • signs to come?
    I don't think this is about a more open M$ but rather a more greedy M$ that could not milk this cow.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Linux Geek
    05/07/2009 08:31 AM

  • ZDNet Blogger

    Doesn't matter for developers
    .NET Micro is an extremely niche product that seems to be intended for devices with under 1MB of memory. It's not to be confused with .NET Compact (used in Windows Mobile) or regular .NET.

    It would only be interesting if it lead to opening up the big brother implementations. But there's no hint of that. This sounds more like abandon-and-dump.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Ed Burnette
    05/07/2009 09:08 AM
  • .Net wannabe Java
    .Net try hard to be Java.
    Java does it since his birth.

    Of course, a lot of people don't realize it yet.
    Other never will.

    hahahaha
    ZDNet Gravatar
    AlessandroBorges@...
    05/07/2009 10:02 AM
  • RE: Microsoft to turn .Net Micro Framework code, support over to the community
    Hmmm... seems like an awful lot of Microsoft haters here. Let me give another perspective. Also seems like a lot of people have no idea what .NET MF was all about. For embedded system developers that don't have the memory or power budget to run Windows Mobile (or embedded Linux) .NET MF is a God send. Modern development language, the best development tools on the planet, and cross platform execution are awsome.

    That said, I think this whole thing sucks. I don't want community support for .NET MF. I paid for a license to the porting kit and I have a license to distribute and I don't want this whole product muddied up by a bunch of graduate students and social rejects who can't code worth a damn.

    My hope is that Colin's statement is actually true and this reporter is just another sniping moron that won't be held accountable for being 100% wrong.

    By the way, I should probably say that I am a pro-Microsoft, pro-Capitalism, pro-Freedom guy who believes that capitalism makes the world go around. (oh-yeah, I forgot Gun-toting and Conservative Christian (which should have been first, I agree) ).

    Flame on.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    rftroubleshooter
    (Edited: 05/14/2009 10:25 AM)
  • RE: Microsoft to turn .Net Micro Framework code, support over to the community
    BTW, I was recently informed by Microsoft that they have .Net Micro Framework 4.0 in Beta and will be released shortly. This seems strange for a company "exiting the business," don't you think?
    ZDNet Gravatar
    DDSCEO
    08/20/2009 05:09 PM

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