Microsoft has beta-released a developer kit for the .NET Micro Framework, a low-end software platform aimed at deeply embedded applications. The .NET MF extends the advantages of .NET and the Visual Studio toolset into small devices with tight constraints on cost, memory, processor, and/or power consumption, Microsoft says.
It seems to me or Java has a lot of advantage in this field, with dozens of micro VMs for dozens of devices?
Everything seems to use it..
Sure does Java have its advantages here, but it will be a nice new playground for .net developers. If you already have virtualization anyway, building an solution for embedded devices is the next logical step and it is not like MS doesn’t have its feet in the ebedded market already anyway.
So will this roll up the embedded market? Unlikely. Will this be a nice oportunity for .net programers? Almost certainly.
I wonder if the mono team will attempt to develop a similar technology. It would be nice to have a completely open source stack to develop for in the embedded market. Java is so pervasive that it is pretty hard to escape from.
Mono already has a solution to embedded environments; they provide a tool that lets developers bring across only the core libraries they require (and a custom mscorlib) along with their mono app.
It was something Miguel talked about recently in a talk about mono at Lang.net – the (wmv) video can be found here: http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/4/1/94138e2a-d9dc-435a-924…