(Re: “Microsoft should rescue Mono,”), I think what’s missing in all of this is that MS Developer Division having revenue is a side effect of the strategy of getting developers to write .NET apps in order to sell more OS, SQL Server, etc. licenses. As such, DevDiv revenues (while large to someone like me) are really quite paltry compared to the real powerhouse revenue generators for MS, and increasing those revenues will probably never be the driver of any strategic decision the company makes (at least not in the foreseeable future).

In this context, anything DevDiv could do (including Mono) that doesn’t directly help MS sell its own products is seen as a distraction or low priority for them. In this context, selling more Visual Studio licenses while enabling the sale of competing or replacement products (Linux, Android, iOS, etc.) isn’t in their (admittedly too narrow) interests. And it is the reason that MS has historically been lukewarm at best in regards to its relationship to the Mono effort.

Given this set of actual priorities for DevDiv, it’s hard to see how their embracing Mono could help them. Sure, they might get minor kudos from the small slice of the OSS-focused world not predisposed to hate all things from Redmond, but only at the expense of enabling the sale of products/platforms that directly compete with where the real money is made by MS. Such a move would make zero business sense given Microsoft’s current business strategy.

I too wish for the success of Mono, but I doubt MS will be their White Knight (if indeed they need one at all).

Steve Bohlen
United States

Praise for agile games
This article (“Making a game of agile”) is awesome to see. From marketing to brand management, serious games provide for understanding to agile teams about the practices that make a team.

We take these games outside of software and into the business. For a long time, IT has driven strategic realization of company goals. Some older businesses have struggled with the changes to leadership from the command-and-control, or compliance by consensus models. These games and other behaviors in the business level that playing field. By providing user stories (not use cases) around a product, comments like, “Oh, why didn’t you just say that?!” start coming out of the IT space as it pertains to understanding the actual business needs.

Many layers of ambiguity are removed by using agile.

Scotty Bevill
United States