&gt;The problem is really simply that Microsoft was never interested, at least until very recently, to have a truly standards compliant compiler.<p>I think Microsoft neglected C++ over .Net before suddenly changing their minds and deciding to support C++ more.<p>VS2010 was one of the first compilers (even before gcc&#x2F;clang) to support parts of the preliminary C++0x standard (e.g. lambda functions). But when the final standard was released they fell behind in implementing it.