This news sounds like a big let down for DNN. Not are they not doing regular asp.net, but they are chosing a CMS and it wasn't DNN.

I wonder what were their reasons.

Reference mentioned here (see comments) http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archiv...

DNN is a CMS. You can publish content (files, images, videos, text..etc) and it goes through an approval, publishing & reversal process just like any CMS system.  Even the home page at dotnetnuke.com clearly says it's a CMS. Can you explain why you think DNN is not a CMS?

Every software in the world has people complaining about it. At asp.net, there's the 'about this site' forum. http://forums.asp.net/188.aspx. It's not clear what  asp.net is using. Usually sites running Community Server have a logo at the page's footer indicating that. I can't see one at asp.net. Also it's not clear if the whole site uses CS or just a portion of it.

Isn't the DNN community larger than Umbraco's? If DNN lacks very good CMS and forums support then what is DNN good for!? CMS and forums seem to be the largest reasons for using DNN. DNN has some very good commercial forum add-ons like Active Forum. If saying Umbraco's forum module is better than Active Forum, then Umraco seems to be a very good piece of software. Also better than commercial oofferings likes  Community Server.  Seems you're also saying CS is lacking in CMS and forums. I didn't try Umbraco so I can't have a personal opinion about it.

I have come across many sites running CS with its forum module but not a single one running Umbraco.

Microsoft is pushing Open Source, thus the move away from Community Server.  As for what Umbraco can do better than DNN in the forums category?  In Umbraco you can sign up for a forum notification and you, wait for it...  Get Notified!  DNN doesn't have any real CMS capabilities out of the box.  Content approval, rollback and taxonomy are rudimentary or don't exist.

Yes, there are commerical modules to add/improve these functions, but that doesn't really fit with the theme of ASP.NET development  Nor does DNN's module system fit well into Microsoft's ASP.NET development platform.  And DNN skinning is especially difficult to grasp from a basic ASP.NET developer prospective.

I'm not saying that any one platform is better or worse, they aren't.  Any product can only be better or worse for a specific task or implementation.  And you can bet the ASP.NET team didn't randomly choose a product, they chose what was most appropriate for their needs and goals.  The fact that it's not your favorite really doesn't enter into their decision process.

Jeff