"There’s also this perception that with Windows 8, the Windows team is trying its best to relegate .NET into the dustbin of legacy platforms"
I haven't heard that anywhere. They are tightening the APIs for security and there is the usual rebranding (Silverlight apparently is out) together with the addition of 'our new things are brilliant, unlike the things that we, lasy year, called our new brilliant things', but AFAIK, Microsoft bet and is still betting heavily on .NET.
The Windows team made a huge investment in HTML & Javascript. You could even say they bet on developers using that over XAML/C#.
Looking at the apps in the Store though, and talking to insiders, and the picture is clear that over 80% of the apps in the Windows 8 Store now are XAML/C#. I've been tracking this for the last few months, and the trend is continuing.
I know I am but one data point, but I feel that was a poor investment choice for the windows team. They should have doubled down on XAML/C#, along with unmanaged code to bring in toolkits like unity and other developers that prefer working in C++.
People are looking at shifts and trying to find trends. It used to be that the trend was towards ever-growing prominence of .NET. With recent shifts, .NET is still present, but other technologies are now filling roles that .NET had been expected to fill, under the previous trend. This suggests a new trend.
I haven't heard that anywhere. They are tightening the APIs for security and there is the usual rebranding (Silverlight apparently is out) together with the addition of 'our new things are brilliant, unlike the things that we, lasy year, called our new brilliant things', but AFAIK, Microsoft bet and is still betting heavily on .NET.
Anybody know what this statement is based on?