Let’s face it, Microsoft is in the business to make money, not to just create what is architecturally elegant. MVC is an age-old, proven pattern, but it is also en-vogue due to the current rails tech fad (although some are jumping to the next cool thing).
MVC (and the related frameworks I know are coming) is Microsoft’s answer to rails. Rails makes web development crazy easy. ASP.Net is clunky and looks hard compared to what can be done with rails. Although, rails is not a do-all, be-all, Microsoft is losing developers to the rails club. You could even argue that more and more new web developers are growing up on rails and look down upon lowly old ASP.net.
Microsoft is just doing what it always does (and does pretty well): taking ideas of competitors and attempting to adapt and enhance them. “Microsoftizing” competitive technologies.
With all that said… It does not mean MVC is “bad” or a “copy” of what rails has made so popular… It is sweet goodness for all of us that understand what this pattern brings to the table. Like many others said, it gives us control where we previously had limited control. It gives us what exists in open-source frameworks but provides it in an interesting and more fully “supported” way (open source is good, but Microsoft’s enterprise-level support of a solid product like MVC is even better). This is huge to large organizations like my employer.
Posted by Brandon P Miller 