Microsoft in surprise partnership with Google to improve Angular 2, the next version of Google's JavaScript web app framework
Three years ago, we introduced TypeScript … Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE : Strange bedfellows: Google does deal with Microsoft that will see AngularJS 2 adopting TypeScript Mark Wilson / BetaNews : Microsoft and Google working together on Angular 2 JavaScript framework Paul Krill / ITworld.com : JavaScript unites Microsoft and Google Egor Koshelko / Medium : Why you should not use AngularJS Owen Williams / The Next Web : Microsoft and Google find common ground to build Angular 2 Michael Domingo / Visual Studio Magazine : Collaboration Puts TypeScript Right in the Middle of AngularJS Rob Marvin / SD Times : Google, Microsoft to combine TypeScript and AtScript in Angular 2 David Iffland / InfoQ : Angular 2.0 Concerns Addressed at ng-conf 2015 Athima Chansanchai / The Fire Hose : Angular 2 will be written in TypeScript Tweets: Savas Parastatidis / @savasp : Wow. It's cool that the two companies are working together to make JavaScript scale in terms of software engineering. http://social.techcrunch.com/ ...
Context & Ripple Effects
This is one of the earliest visible fruits of Microsoft's open-source turn: three years after introducing TypeScript, the company has persuaded Google to build Angular 2 on it, with Google dropping its own AtScript experiment in favor of a Microsoft-led language. For a framework as widely deployed as AngularJS, handing the type system to a direct rival was a genuine surprise to the developer community.
The arc matters more than the single deal. It set the template for later cross-competitor collaborations — Google joining the .NET Foundation, Microsoft working with Google on browser compatibility across five CSS areas, and the two companies cooperating on getting Progressive Web Apps into the Play Store. By the time TypeScript turned ten, the language born of this partnership had become a default choice for building web apps.
First-order effects
- Angular 2 developers get Microsoft's TypeScript as the framework's language, gaining static typing at scale while Google retires its parallel AtScript effort rather than maintaining two competing supersets of JavaScript.
Second-order effects
- Microsoft converts a rival's massive Angular install base into daily TypeScript usage outside its own ecosystem, pressuring competing frameworks and tooling vendors to treat typed-JavaScript as table stakes rather than an optional add-on.
Third-order effects
- The deal established the playbook both companies reused — .NET Foundation membership, joint browser-compatibility work, Play Store cooperation for PWAs — pointing toward web platform infrastructure being co-governed by competitors instead of fragmented along corporate lines.
The trend: Rival platform vendors are increasingly co-developing shared web tooling and standards — TypeScript in Angular being the early proof point — rather than fighting over incompatible developer stacks.