From what I have heard so far, it seems that Microsoft still thinks that it is in their interest to have Perl run on .NET. As long as they think that, ActiveState will have funding and technical support.

Of course when Microsoft changes their mind, well the history of vendors who have tried to work with Microsoft on anything resembling a shared standard is not good.

Personally I am with the hordes of people who think that Miguel is making a horrible mistake. My bet is that he will get support from Microsoft until the moment that they decide they have enough momentum to pull whatever patents they have on .NET out and try to get a lock on the market.

Call me cynical. But Microsoft has a long history in which they have demonstrated that their top priority is getting a lock on any defacto or real standards. As long as they have that, they will have opportunities later for outrageous profit. .NET is their attempt to own the internet, and hosted standards. Suffice it to say that, no matter how well thought out it may or may not be, I will be hesitant to become dependent on it for anything...