Low cost deployment is the new reality. a) Without having a low cost deployment option the competiveness of microsoft is greatly reduced in the big data market

Low cost deployment is the new reality. a) Without having a low cost deployment option the competiveness of microsoft is greatly reduced in the big data market. b) It might take Microsoft 3-4 years to work out the business model but having a portable .net framework with low / zero cost deployment would make apps written in .net viable in sectors where they dont have a chance currently - embedded , big data. c) The few startup people ive talked to have all worried about "theoretical portability", ie they might never use the portability but they would like the programs to work on different OS's. d) OSX actually benefits greatly from its unixy structural similarity to linux / bsd. Most developers I see here in NYC develop on osx and deploy on linux (linode, heroku etc) e) While Mono is a great project, having a blessed / direct version of .net would reduce the business risk in the mind of customers.