November 18, 2009 Update: Apparently we may be relying on old media a little too much as this transcript doesn’t seem to mention wp.com moving to Azure… still we can but wait to get clarification off someone from Automattic (who are being unusually quiet :)
Update 2: Yep, never rely on a journalist it would seem… or a Daily Finance one at least… evidently all of the below is baloney but I’ll leave it up just so you can laugh at me :)
Update 3: Here’s what actually happened… better late than never.
Breaking news from Inquisitr and backed up by Daily Finance has Automattic switching WordPress.com (and you would assume their other services) to the new Microsoft Azure hosting platform.
Automattic founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg took the stage with Ozzie to talk about why he chose to use Azure for distributed hosting for WordPress and the millions of blogs its customers have online. Automattic is known as a strong advocate of Open Source technology. Mullenweg has built WordPress to run primarily atop Open Source software such as the Linux operating system, the MySQL database and the Apache Web server. Yet there he was onstage with Ozzie plugging Microsoft. Huh? [Alex Salkaver – Daily Finance
Not entirely sure what to make of this personally, but it would seem somewhat hypocritical – especially for the company that decided to move to Ngix as Litespeed were deemed not Open Source enough)
However, speaking in a business sense it’s probably a good decision – I’m sure Automattic are either getting stacks of cash from M$ and/or a great deal… and I doubt that they would have done anything to jeopardise their current performance.
And, from a personal perspective, I’d almost certainly do the same if a large chunk of cash was being dangled in front of my nose!
However, I’m not sure how well this will go down with Matt’s fans and the community at large.
What do you reckon… good call or dodgy deal?
James Farmer on Google+
I think this is a real coup for Microsoft. I have been on many a research panel sponsored by Microsoft as they try to figure out how to woo Open Source hosting providers to the Microsoft platform.
The fact that MIcrosoft deveoped an “open platform” that supports MIcrosoft and not Microsoft software does not surprise me in the least. It does support PHP, XML, SOAP and so on.
They offer a hybrid cloud solution, which makes it one step removed from, ” I switched to Microsoft OS”. Smart
Definitely a win for MS, absolutely no doubt about that… what about ‘mattic tho?
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I literally just threw up a little in my mouth.
The biggest winner today, by far, is Microsoft. (threw up a little again).
Now I feel like Automattic, being a for profit company, has an exit strategy. If they price is right, I bet the shareholders would sell to M$. MS would support WordPress for about a year. All the time they need to convert as many ppl as they can over to M$’s Oxite.
Wow. I don’t blame Matt for this epic fail as much as I blame the Board of Directors @ Automattic. They’re the ones who run the money show. Matt is merely their puppet with an expense acct.
GJ Matt. You get to keep your salary a little while longer. Don’t worry, your next job as “Evangelist” for MS’s .asp blog platform will make you the laughing stock of digerati and dumbasses alike.
Even though Microsoft is going to B2 your ass, the WordPress community will live on.
So sad that all of Automattic’s VIP clients are going back to the same place where they started (before wordpress); Microsoft.
Duncan Riley misread the situation. They (Automattic) are moving/starting a single site on Azure:
They’re not moving WP.com to Azure.
What’s this bit then:
“to talk about why he chose to use Azure for distributed hosting for WordPress and the millions of blogs its customers have online.”
(from daily finance)
(That quote is from this eWeek article…)
Well they are obviously in conflict… my question would be where’s the announcement / news from Automattic?
I was about to post something when Viper007Bond threw the following over the Twitter Transom
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/ozzie/2009/11-17PDC.mspx
That’s the transcript from the PDC remarks — Matt’s comments are about 1/3 of the way down.