August 10, 2012 - Microsoft opens Office and SharePoint up to web developers
In the run up to the Office 15 release, Microsoft execs are talking up a key goal: Making it easy for non-Windows web developers to build add-ons and enhancements to both Office and SharePoint. This is a shift in strategy — Microsoft is trying to make Office — the company’s undisputed cash cow — cloud-worthy while also ensuring that it remains the center of most workers’ computing worlds.
With this version developers who know how to use JavaScript, HTML5, REST and OATH — can develop extensions and add-ons that can run in Microsoft Azure, but also on Amazon, a LAMP-stack cloud — any cloud, said Richard Riley, director of technical product management for SharePoint. (Windows Azure guy Scott Guthrie recently blogged about the whole Office-365-add-ons-running-in-Azure thing here.)
