Google implementing JavaScript Native Apps. At last.

Google hopping on the JS Train
Google hopping on the JS Train

I am not emotional towards any technology. I am slightly emotional when everybody misses the obvious, though.

And the obvious here is that Google and Apple are “chasing” Microsoft, at least on the API front for their respective platforms.

How? Microsoft has HTML/CSS/JavaScript as Native Apps enabbing technologies (plural) for several years now. I am not 99% sure since when, but that is a fact. At least all the way back to the first release of WinRT and W8.

And the obvious huge elephant everybody misses patiently grazing in the corner, is the most important software on the planet. All of a sudden released both on iOS and Android. Before Windows. Oops? Yes, I am talking here MS Office for iOS and Android OS. And that is a HUGELY RELEVANT tactical move that Microsoft is executing as we speak. So surprising that even Windows OS “feels” in danger :)

An nobody in the sea of Google HTML/CSS/JS commentators has not mentioned these obvious and important facts. There must be few, but I could not Google-out any?

High drama it seems. But. Why is that important? Because it shows that Google admits why is that enabling technology (HTML/CSS/JS) necessary to have. Thus, Google understands better than Google well wishers. Google reacts to Microsoft. Same as Apple. And that is HUGE market tectonic shift. This makes all of this important. All of a sudden it is the opposite. Microsoft is not “chasing them” any more.

Please nte: These are observations on the level of strategic movements in the IT industry. Much more relevant than micro level where lemmings are cogitating: “is it going to be DART” ? Or some other low level and largely irrelevant implementation detail.

Again. After announcement of imminent MS Office Android Release, all of a sudden Google is announcing at last some productive truly 21-st century API. And. At last not an instant legacy enabling technology for the Android OS. Yes dear reader. Yet another “big white elephant in the room” and often overlooked fact about Android OS: It was always a legacy OS. JVM is legacy. Android API+SDK were a legacy as soon as they were released.  Especially when compared to the WinRT+WinJS duo.

But wait, there is more! Apple SWIFT . The language, the new XCode IDE, and the rest.  Key question for you: But why? Why now?

Again the same motivation as Google. All important Developers. An new and brave enabling technology that is trying to be on the par with Microsoft WinRT and WinJS. Yet another legacy API (including dreaded Objective-C) that had to be changed. And why? Not because APPL or GOOG are immensely altruistic but simply because MSFT has it for several years.

So what if the have it for several years? Well I am not sure about it myself. But it seems, at last and all of a sudden developers understood MSFT has it. And it is advanced, easy, modern and productive Native API. Unlike the “other two”.

In one painful, risky, necessary and surprising maneuver, Microsoft has killed few of  its own favourite children (SilverLight, .NET) and even put at risk its crown jewel (Windows).  The large and rusty mega-ship was subjected to sudden turn, it creaked and wailed, even few cracks appeared for horrified shareholders to plug.. but ..Maneuver has paid of.

What matters most here and now, is that all of a sudden Microsoft is not chasing them (Google, Apple) but they have started chasing Microsoft. And that is a big deal.