> Many of my colleagues never touched node.js til Microsoft started using it.
Couldn't there also be the reason that before Microsoft started to become active in Node.js the Windows support for it was really bad (bad Windows support is a typical problem of lots of open source projects; I mean: I could understand it if OS X (at least the same degree proprietary) support were similarly bad, but this is usually not the case).
Node is very attractive for a variety of reasons, and TypeScript complements it like hand in glove (which is completely intentional, kudos to MS on that part).
Transitioning to Node+TS from .Net is fairly straightforward (setting aside the completely new tooling, building, open source package resources, etc), and you get microservices + much better performance with minimal friction.
Granted, large-scale systems of the Node variety are a world's difference from .Net, but that is not insurmountable.
The appeal is more than simply improving compatibility -- the whole microservices movement had been happening beneath Microsoft's noses, and this is their response to it. It is nothing short of impressive how they have expanded the .Net stack in order to remain current.
Couldn't there also be the reason that before Microsoft started to become active in Node.js the Windows support for it was really bad (bad Windows support is a typical problem of lots of open source projects; I mean: I could understand it if OS X (at least the same degree proprietary) support were similarly bad, but this is usually not the case).