Joel Spolsky, a very well known Windows blogger and developer of FogBugz (bug tracking software that Stardock uses) has written a very compelling article about how Microsoft is slowly destroying themselves by alienating software developers. The net result is that most developers are now writing web applications instead of local PC desktop applications.
As Paul Graham put it, "There is all the more reason for startups to write Web-based software now, because writing desktop software has become a lot less fun. if you want to write desktop software now you do it on Microsoft's terms, calling their APIs, and working around their buggy OS. And if you manage to write something that takes off, you may find that you were merely doing market research for Microsoft."
I highly recommend reading this article. It's long but if you only read one article this month, this is the one you should read.
