Why Is Microsoft Competing With Backend as a Service Startups?

http://www.kinvey.com/blog/item/217-why-is-microsoft-competing-with-baas-startups?

by kinvey • 14 years ago

22 10 14 years ago

jconley• 14 years ago

The Azure Mobile Services look to be a first step for Microsoft to wrap up some of their Azure offerings in a nice little package with a bow on top. Azure goes very much beyond what's mentioned in this article. Azure is something like a mashup of Heroku, AWS, and App Engine. It supports java, php, python, anything you can run in an IIS process, and anything you can run in a Windows/Linux VM. And, the new management interface is HTML/Javascript, not Silverlight.

See: http://www.windowsazure.com/

ralfn• 14 years ago

I'm not too familiar with Azure, and that's mostly because of bias from my side. I have this idea in my head, that Microsoft never ever just sells a development tool on its own merits. As if any product created used Microsoft tools automatically makes that product part of the vendor-lock-in of Microsoft, in some sense.

And while I was thinking that, I came to the conclusion I haven't looked at any of their products targeting developpers in almost a decade. Maybe things have changed. But all the stated differences in the linked article seem to suggest, things are not that different. But it's just one article, and you seem very informed, am I wrong, in this assumption? When Microsoft creates a development tool, is the intention to capitalize on me, as a developer (which I would like), or to control what I can capitalize on in the market space? (which is just unacceptable)

Is it not smart, that the majority of developers, tend to always favor independent parties, where we are the core customer. From Heroku, to Github. Neither one has any interest in what platforms we support. They only care about supporting us, so we keep paying them. One could even argue, that most development tools provided by platform vendors, are intrinsically destined to be anti-competitive.

erikgrueter• 14 years ago

Go Kinvey!!!!

CurtHagenlocher• 14 years ago

'It is worth noting that Azure provides a "dynamic schema" feature for the backing relational database.'

There are two different Azure table-like stores: SQL Azure, which is indeed a relational database, and Azure Tables, which are not. It's only the latter whose schema is dynamic in the sense the author means.

(Although I'm a Microsoft employee, I know nothing about the "Baas" product.)

jbigelow76• 14 years ago

The link to Scott Guthrie's blog announcement implies SQL Server only, both the diagram and the text say SQL Database and relational, implying no Azure Tables. I thought the absence of Azure Table storage offering was odd myself. Maybe the communication just wasn't clear?

larrik2• 14 years ago

That table makes me cringe: "Azure" vs "BaaS Players"

Are we comparing Azure to ALL of the startups in the scene? What about features that one has but others don't. Is there even one service that the "BaaS Players" column completely and accurately describes? I literally don't know, and the article doesn't tell me.

My gut says this is like comparing the USA (or whatever single county) vs. "Europe" and only picking your favorite parts from each country, and shaking your head at the USA for not having all of these positives. In fact, however, no single country in Europe would actually have all those positive points, or even a majority (usually)

ivanstoyanov• 14 years ago

>no single country in Europe would actually have all those positive points

Oh, you must not have visited Switzerland. :-) Anyway, I'm the author, I am providing a high level comparison, yes, between Azure and the feature set that is establishing with most BaaS companies. If I've missed anything important I'd love to be corrected.

larrik2• 14 years ago

Ha! Switzerland came up last time I made that point.

I actually don't know what you missed, if anything. I came to your article having never heard of any of the players in the BaaS scene (besides Azure). I left with the impression that everyone besides Azure is basically exactly the same thing, running the same technology, and offering the same features. My brain dismissed that as unlikely, or at the least, some wallpapering. In fact, it might not be that unlikely after all.

Of course, I'm not in the market for a BaaS anyway, that's just the impression I was left in as a purely curious reader.

cek• 14 years ago

What I find interesting is Azure Mobile Services was apparently built using node.js.

thepumpkin1979• 14 years ago

I read the article, it starts with a questions and ends with no answer. The only thing interesting was the info-graphic.

Why Is Microsoft Competing With Backend as a Service Startups?

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