C# moved to #3 on TIOBE chart

It's a nice language and a nice platform. The new ASP.NET MVC and EntityFramework stuff is very nicely done too. The community is in the lift as well thanks to the professional stackoverflow network and initiatives like NuGet. It really isn't a bad place to work in. Same deal goes with Visual Basic. Same power, different (imo easier to read, more annoying to write) syntax.

But for a low-budget startup the licensing costs are what'll get you in the long run. Stick with something free to use like ruby, javascript, php, etc.

Perhaps main reason for this MS is promoting the language at the expense of Visual Basic. Personally, I think it is a shame that a language targeted mainly to a single OS gain such popularity (not counting Mono.)

A little bit off-topic but does anyone else find odd that Javascript is still ranked below Perl of all things? You'd think between node.js and all the client-side craziness it would have a much stronger showing.

ASP.Net might be behind the growth, but I wouldn't discount native application development (particularly in the enterprise space). Not everyone writes web apps, after all. :)