Docker everywhere: Container service comes to Windows, Mac, Azure, and AWS

Linux developers and admins have been singing the praises of Docker for a while: It's a containerization service that removes much of the headaches of OS environment tweaking, making it easier for teams to collaborate on software development, to reliably deploy software, and many other common application tasks that should be easy in theory but which can become endlessly complicated in practice.

Now the rest of the world is getting a taste. At DockerCon, it was announced that the deployment automation tool was coming to users in all sorts of places:

And for those eager to get up and running with something they can trust, Docker also introduced the Docker Store, in private beta:

Docker Store builds on the Official Images and the popularity of the Docker Hub for community  content by providing an official marketplace that provides workflows for those who wish to create and distribute content and those that wish to download content to build their applications.

Microsoft is embracing the moves, with Mark Russinovich, Microsoft Azure CTO, touting Microsoft's piece of the news:

As the cloud for enterprise, Microsoft Azure has seen a huge uptick in just the past few months as enterprises begin to adopt container technology – moving from "hypothesis" to "reality" as they realize the benefits of cost savings and business agility containers can provide. According to a recent survey on the future of Open Source Software by North Bridge Partners, seventy-six percent of 1400 companies surveyed globally plan to use containers in 2016 and forty percent already were.

That's pretty incredible growth for a technology that barely existed a few years ago.