Docker is a new technology- I suspect the poor support that Windows has for Docker is going to cut into Microsoft's bottom line in the coming years. Microsoft MUST support high performance docker in the next year or I suspect they are going to lose a lot of server customers soon, if Docker's exponential adoption curve continues for the foreseeable future.
Let's face it- Microsoft Windows is really just a legacy OS now... They either need to switch to a UNIX-derived kernel, which would allow for native docker support (amongst a million other advantages that come from sharing a sensible common infrastructure with other OSes) or they are headed for the dustbin of history pretty soon.
Lets be honest. How many people are deploying WebLogic on Docker? How about SAP? How about any large enterprise back office application at all?
You see, Windows Server serves an entirely different market.
The kind of applications being deployed on OS level virtualisation just don't get deployed on Windows anyways.
About as close as you are going to get are Java applications which even then are usually deployed on a point of abstraction like an application server. (At the end of the day RHEL is still much more common for big Java apps)
That is not to say that Windows would not benefit from some sort of OS level virtualisation, only that it means absolutely nothing that they don't have it right now (or even for a few years).
Windows Server will continue to dominate back office deployments ad infinitum.
As much as I dislike Windows, there is a whole world of "enterprise" software running on Windows that isn't going away. SQL Server and Active Directory come to mind as Microsoft products being heavily and actively invested in by the enterprise.
If you're in the Ruby/Python/Go/Docker/whatever echo chamber it's easy to miss the other echo chambers out there. There are tons of companies out there still making a decent living from developing and maintaining software in curiously tenacious tech like Delphi, FileMaker and MUMPS.
> There are tons of companies out there still making a decent living from developing and maintaining software in curiously tenacious tech like Delphi, FileMaker and MUMPS.
Right, those are the very definition of legacy software... so where is your disagreement with me?
Those were two separate, unrelated points (though a lot of people would disagree that Delphi and MUMPS are legacy software, though FileMaker surely is).
As nice as that would be, I don't see this happening until gaming gets popular on unix based platforms. Ths would be because then it becomes easier for consumers to flee to another OS. With gaming predominantly on Windows platforms for PCs, gamers have no choice but to use Windows to play most of the games they're interested in, which locks them into Windows.
Let's face it- Microsoft Windows is really just a legacy OS now... They either need to switch to a UNIX-derived kernel, which would allow for native docker support (amongst a million other advantages that come from sharing a sensible common infrastructure with other OSes) or they are headed for the dustbin of history pretty soon.