When the heck did .NET took over????

I was looking at job vacancies and all of them all said to the point of must have exp in C# or ASP (for web programming).

When the heck did Microsoft took over??? I though C++ and PHP were reigning still.

Actually, after working with C# in a professional environment for the last 8 months or so, I must admit that it isn't as bad as all that.  It has weaknesses (as all languages do), but I can't deny it's general technical merit for its target.

My primary concern is how tightly it's coupled with MS.  All this C# code is going to bite us in the ass one of these days when MS decides to abandon the technology.