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This week, Microsoft announced the launch and release of a brand-new service – Azure DevOps. If you were to simply review their launch materials (liked to here) you would be forgiven if you assumed that it was a completely brand-new service. Well, it's kind of is and it’s kind of not and – judging by the social media posts we’ve seen over the last forty-eight hours – there are a lot of smart tech folks out there who don’t know what to make of it yet. Let’s see if we can clear that up for you.

We build a lot of successful websites for businesses and enterprise organizations. Sometimes our existing customers ask, and sometimes friends and associates ask, “Do we need a new website?” But that’s not the right question. Actually, you need to start with three questions first.

Some recent events have demonstrated some of the challenges that can come from these arrangements. Twice in the last week we have been asked to jump in and help when a system or process has been disrupted by the hosting environment or the environment has not been available to assist when a disruption has occurred, resulting in significant outages, unnecessary heartache and costs, and more than a few sleepless nights for our customers’ in-house IT teams. When we’re asked about what’s important to consider when choosing a hosting provider, here’s what we say.

In a way, it’s hard to believe that more than two years have passed since the first production release of Microsoft’s .NET Core framework development platform. But it also feels like a long time because those two years have been full of advances, updates, and new releases. We have been developing applications on the Microsoft technology stack for more than fifteen years now, and we have never seen the pace of platform innovation moving this fast and effectively before. The Microsoft team is obviously dedicated and committed to the success of the platform.

Depending on who you are listening to, the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the right of individual states to charge sales tax on internet transactions is either a small blip on the economics of internet retail or the end of eCommerce as we know it. The reality is that it’s something far more boring … it’s an open door for governmental regulation and additional economic friction.

The news broke this morning that Microsoft Corp [MSFT] has acquired leading software project collaboration and sharing service GitHub for $7.5 billion in stock. There are a lot of pro and con arguments making the rounds, but we believe this is a good thing for a few very important reasons.