“Mounting anger over Microsoft’s business tactics could hamper uptake of its .NET application development platform. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates claims to have “bet the company” on .NET, which is both an over-arching business strategy and a software development platform to rival Sun Microsystems’ Java technology. But Gartner research shows resentment of Microsoft’s licensing practices and fear of relinquishing control is feeding scepticism of .NET among IT executives.” Read the report at News.com.au.
Bill’s Bet on .NET Fails to Impress
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Yay!
have we heard that people are upset with Microsoft over their tactics and yet Microsoft still gets what they want but in a different form?
Makes one wonder.
Whenever Gartner says something anti Linux, it’s “They’re full of crap, they’re always wrong…” and when it’s anti Microsoft, it’s “Oh, it MUST be TRUE…”
Morons…
“Gartner research shows resentment of Microsoft’s licensing practices and fear of relinquishing control is feeding scepticism of .NET among IT executives.”
Oh really. Did they get paid for that research?
Some more: “Gartner research shows that in winter people tend to dress warm. Gartner research says that it will be sunny after rain. Gartner research says there is no free meal except when it’s free.”
When is Gartner going to do some decent research?
As I said already, even if .NET did have technical advantages over Java, busnesses don’t want to compromise themselves with the company that’s behind .NET.
I know nothing of Gartner’s research, but I keep feeling that Microsoft is vulnerable. They keep pushing back deadlines, cancelling things and have tried to explain .Net in so many different ways that most people are more confused than ever about it – except that it gives Microsoft more control than ever. Companies do not fear them like they used to. I think they are vulnerable and don’t really understand that they are vulnerable.
With so much personal and fiancial information that could be attained through .NET services, I will not trust, rely or use such .NET in business or personal use. With such a broad range of commercial application I would expect MS – or any other company that employs such services – to have it peer reviewed and scrutinized by numerous secuirty experts including looking at the source code. To my knowlege this is not the case, as MS has done only internal testing. Their security history speaks volumes of the quality of work I would expect to come about from such audits.
Whenever Gartner says something anti Linux, it’s “They’re full of crap, they’re always wrong…” and when it’s anti Microsoft, it’s “Oh, it MUST be TRUE…”
Except that Gartner here is reporting on what is happening presently, rather than making unreliable prognostications about where some fill-in-the-blank-headline-grabber is going to be in five years.
“…they are vulnerable and don’t really understand that they are vulnerable…”
Microsoft is one big bubble based on FUD. Just as well they have big cash reserves.
Any day now….
As I said already, even if .NET did have technical advantages over Java, busnesses don’t want to compromise themselves with the company that’s behind .NET.
The same way that they don’t compromise themselves with the company that provides their operating systems and productivity software.
..many organisations use Windows as a desktop and often as a server OS, and use Office as their productivity software. And I will also add that they actually are not always forced to. Take as an eample Sun, which is a big company, and yet most of their desktops are not Windows, the majority does not have Office but StarOffice installed, and none of the servers is Windows. So, it’s possible.
Most companies are in the deep with these microsoft products, they just don’t see a way out – for now (but it seems that they are seeking one). But where they have not stepped in the mud called MS, they have more courage to avoid it. Unlike 10 years ago, when many companies switched from a very solid server solution (NetWare) to a very weak one (Windows NT). Back then, everybody was in love with MS. Not anymore.
I have become something of a Microsoft fan in the last year or so. Before that, I actively pushed linux and java.
The funny thing with Microsoft is that it usually takes them several tries to get it right. Yes, early versions of Windows, Word, whatever, were very week. NT server was terrible. But they’ve finally reached the point where as a consultant, I have no qualms recommending 2k server over anything else.
Dotnet is Good Stuff. I was skeptical at first, but it beats Java hands down in every category except portability. And if I’m pushing Microsoft solutions, portability isn’t an issue for me.
I don’t think that most people are looking for a way out of Microsoft’s clutches. Not the small to medium size companies that I work with.
1) I wouldn’t trust Gartner, whether they say something pro or anti-Microsoft. They’ve had years on inconsistancy. One minute they say x86-64 is the future, then at the last minute, change that to Itanium is the future and x86-64 isn’t worth the trouble. This is the same with Microsoft, one minute Gartner paints them as scumbags, then the next day, they’re painted as saints.
2) .NET is a failure. Until such time as I see Microsoft FULLY PORT ALL THE .NET TECHNOLOGIES TO OTHER PLATFORMS and PORT ALL THEIR SOFTWARE 100% NATIVELY TO .NET, I don’t see .NET moving anywhere. This is where Java has the edge. Development tools? they’re written in Java. Name a platform, and I’ll put money on it, there is Java available for it. Application serving software, written in 100% pure Java, YET, with Microsoft, there is no 100% .NET IIS6 or Media Server or Application Server or CRM Software etc etc. In the user space, I see no 100% .NET Office or Media Player or any other middleware.
I can confirm that there is only around 2 Microsoft Windows desktops in SUN New Zealands headquarters 😉 All the rest are Ultra Sparc 10/5 and 3 SUN Blade 2000, *drool* 😉
The Microsoft Windows workstations are used for developing Java for Windows.
Name a platform, and I’ll put money on it, there is Java available for it.
PalmOS 3.5, Windows CE 3.0. I develop applications for handheld devices. I wanted Java support so I don’t have to recompile and test my programs for every embedded CPU manufacturers make a PDA for.
Yes, Java is available for both those platforms I mentioned above, but the implementation is usually a hack and not standard, not consistent. PersonalJava for WinCE 3.0 was only available for MIPS PocketPCs (Casio’s Cassiopeia), I waited a year for Sun to release a StrongARM version which they promised, and I’ve long since given up waiting.
On PalmOS, there was no official support from Sun. All the solutions I’ve come across use custom Java class libraries that are specific to that implementation, I could just take my Java apps and run them on other platforms. Portability was compromised in this case.
Palm’s announcement of PalmOS 6.0 included a “maybe” for the inclusion of .Net support. I’m wondering how will it will be implemented to match the existing .Net Compact Framework for WinCE.
So far, Microsoft has done me one favor in standardizing modern versions of WinCE to be for StrongARM CPUs only (XScale is compatible with the StrongARM instruction set). So now all manufacturers are making PDAs based on the StrongARM CPU, the only other defining variable from one manufacturer’s products to another’s is how much RAM it has and other little features. All of a sudden this doesn’t sound too good for the manufacturers. The market is now saturated with dozens of brand names selling PDAs that are all very similar in hardware specs. The only way left to compete is who can deliver more bang for the consumer’s buck and how cheap can they manufacture the PDAs so they can play their little price war game. Thanks MS. More companies are losing money because of you.
Microsoft has the luxury of being able to make mistakes and recover from them. It missed the Internet boat and then came back and won the browser war and is now embracing everything network-oriented. MSN is even growing. MSFT is just now starting to produce technologies in areas that have been long discussed, researched and developed by SUN, et al.
This is the amazing part!! Java (and family) has been around a relatively LONG time while .NET is new but yet __ALREADY__ .NET is considered serious competition. Is anyone even using it???? Almost overnight, Microsoft has been able to scare the crap out of the Java world. That’s power and _serious_ buzzzzz.
Microsoft will make __lots__ of stupid mistakes but keep on moving forward with lost of money and market power. Don’t count them out yet and if you think you are smart then put your money where your mouth is and short Microsoft stock
Having said that, Microsoft’s licensing strategy is serious crap and seems to have been developed by pin-head accountants without input from technologists. It is a good thing that people are making Microsoft pay for this nonsense and, I bet, Microsoft will reform…they know how to bounce back as we’ve seen.
Have you noticed that when it comes to the client-end, people are thinking of switching from MSFT primarily to _SAVE MONEY_ and NOT to get a better product. It is always cost and licensing. If you can only compete on cost and not innovation then Microsoft will eventually roll you over…remember the FREE BROWSER that killed Netscape!!!!
Turning office suites into low-cost commodities won’t kill Microsoft but will kill a lot of competition that only competes on cost.
Don’t underestimate 30+ billion in cash
Who you should blame for the PC state (and how the Pocket PC world would be like) is the hardware companies. Microsoft has little to no incentives in finding ways to make hardware companies more different and to make money. All the things they are doing now is to make themselves more profitable. The problem is that not to many hardware companies really try to differenciate themselves and therefore charge a premium for their products.
So don’t blame it on the hardware companies. Having a similar processor and a similar OS doesn’t mean everything must be the same. I can write down a list of things I want done to improve Pocket PCs as a whole, and if I build that, I’m quite certain it would sell.
The big problem with .NET, which may come at a suprise to some of you ABMers, is a classic PR problem. Confusion. Ask a person on the street, they don’t know what .NET is. Microsoft made a grave mistake bundling different initiatives under one brand name.
People see .NET as a new way of selling software via subsciption. That’s why many companies are spectical about its Web Services and Framework because of the Volume Licensing 6.0 is confused with .NET.
Had Microsoft drawn the line on the PR front between different products and initiaves by using different names, there wouldn’t be any confusion. People are afraid of adopting one part of .NET because of a weakness of another part of .NET that doesn’t concern them.
This is one of Microsoft’s major mistakes in its recent history.
Uhmmmm, Sun doesn’t have all their software (especially on the desktop side, think StarOffice) in Java. Why should Microsoft? Converting large programs into .NET takes a lot of time and money, and unless Microsoft has something to gain, they shouldn’t waste time at it. Various parts of Office would be using .NET in the future, for example, but Office 11 itself wouldn’t be based on .NET Framework nor depend on My Services.
When did Microsoft release their stable version of .NET Framework? Yes, you can expect everything to be in .NET. Even Sun back then wasn’t that fast. Besides, even if all Microsoft software comes in .NET, I don’t think .NET would be more successful or less successful. Though one thing for sure, it would be hard for the courts to ask for its removal.
Besides, I always wanted to ask this, do you work for Sun? (Especially since you can confirm that Sun indeed has 2 Windows workstations). Besides, I’m quite darn sure Apple has PC workstations, and Microsoft has Sun’s Blades, because this is business. I also bet Microsoft have some Linux machines around somewhere, for sure. It would be stupid not knowing how good your competitors are.
—
mario, people moved from NetWare to Windows NT because Novell’s public image was worse than Microsoft’s today. Plus the fact that Microsoft and dozens of other independant groups and research centers claim Windows was better than NetWare.
1) I don’t work for SUN. I never have and probably never will.
2) Microsoft has touted the .NET framework as the eventual successor to the Win32 API due to .NET’s security features. If Microsoft don’t support, then why should any one else?
3) Most application servers and development tools that involve Java are written in Java, why can’t Microsoft do the same with .NET?
4) SCO/Caldera use Windows 98 and Netscape in their UK Offices. btw. Does that make me an employee of SCO/Caldera?
5) There are still a large number of people quite happy with their hetrogenious setup. Using Java and numerous other cross platform technologies in their every day busines. Unless Microsoft can come out and give a reason why they have a better solution than Java, simply stating speed isn’t going to be enough to move some people.
— Matthew Gardiner —
2) .NET is a failure. Until such time as I see Microsoft FULLY PORT ALL THE .NET TECHNOLOGIES TO OTHER PLATFORMS and PORT ALL THEIR SOFTWARE 100% NATIVELY TO .NET, I don’t see .NET moving anywhere. This is where Java has the edge. Development tools? they’re written in Java. Name a platform, and I’ll put money on it, there is Java available for it. Application serving software, written in 100% pure Java, YET, with Microsoft, there is no 100% .NET IIS6 or Media Server or Application Server or CRM Software etc etc. In the user space, I see no 100% .NET Office or Media Player or any other middleware.
Why does Microsoft have to port everything to dotnet for it not to be a failure? Has Sun ported everything to Java? No, and they won’t. The performance would be horrible. Correl learned that trying to port WordPerfect to Java.
Why is a dotnet version of IIS important? Or a media server? That doesn’t make any sense. Real businesses aren’t using Java webservers, why should they use dotnet webservers?
You don’t see a lot of dotnet apps in the user space because it’s still a fairly new technology. Dotnet is the recommended development platform now though, so you’re going to see more and more apps coming out.
How about Java on BeOS? I’d still be using BeOS (and Java) if that combination was available.
Java IDEs, as a rule, suck. They are slow, have HUGE resource requirements, and don’t integrate with their environment very well. I would much rather use a native IDE to develop Java code than use a Java one.
Most business writing software don’t need portability. Windows is *the* market in user space, and is making in-roads in the server space. I would much rather hit 90+% of the user base with an app that isn’t bloated, than hit 99% with an app that is.
Well said. 🙂
well I’d agree with that … unfortunately, we’re tied to MS products as servers at work due to third party applications – however, rdesktop on *nix is looking to be a nice way of replacing MS on the desktop for Terminal Server environments.
Hello dear FUD machine.
I left my previous company, because they assigned me to .NET project. (Yes, I am fucking serious.) I will never ever use .NET. The reason is that MS is an unethical company. I don’t want to help any unethical company. Why should I use .NET anyways? I can do everything I need using Java, and its free, and its cross platform.
Now,
“Java IDEs, as a rule, suck. They are slow, have HUGE resource requirements, and don’t integrate with their environment very well. I would much rather use a native IDE to develop Java code than use a Java one. ”
Oh yeah? So, Java IDEs as a rule suck? You infinitesimal reptile!
This is pure FUD. Which Java IDEs did you use? Did you, for example, used Eclipse? I used VS.NET while learning .NET. (I said learning. This means that I am not talking about creating production code. Why I learned? To defend Java.
) It is 2GB on disk, bloated, slow, and do not contain even refactorings. Eclipse is free, not even 400 MB on disk, it is the best IDE I have ever seen. It is written in Java, but it is designed to be an IDE that can be used to program in any language. It uses SWT technology (native widgets based GUI system.) developed by IBM, and fast. It supports refactorings, and has an incredibly flexible plug-in architecture. There are more than 150 plug-ins are already available. Eclipse, for me, is much much better than VS.NET calamity. And do you know how much it cost? ZERO. Yes, it costs ZERO. Before telling something, please make a research. Oh, and since it is Java, it can run on all Java platforms. Go and investigate it: http://www.eclipse.org
MS is as a rule a monopolist.
As to what I used for a Java IDE, I use SUN Forte Java 4. I haven’t had any issues. The only people who have issues are John and Jane Cheapskate who have machines with 32MB of memory running Windows 95.
I on the other hand, I’ve run it under Solaris 8 x86 without any problems, and then ran it on Linux without any problems too. Sure, I have 768MB of RAM, but who cares? RAM’s cheap.
The people who complain about bloat are the same ones who get all happy that it takes Windows .NET 84MB just to get booted to a desktop, yet, when they want to use some applications, which, that is what a computer and OS are designed to do, they pull a hissy fit.
Whats more important, applications or the OS?
Corels port of Wordperfect Suite to Java was bloody awful:
1) It relied on a browser, that isn’t a true Java applications in comparision to JBuilder or Forte Java
2) It used Java 1, which was slow and buggy
3) There was never a demand or a reason to why it should be ported. Today is different, with the need to produce secure programmes, and running them in a sandbox allows a user to run applications without their system being hosed.
— Croanon —
You’re probably right, I shouldn’t have generalized. Rather than saying that Java IDEs suck as a rule, I should have said that my personal experience, as well as that of every Java developer I know, is that Java IDEs suck. I’ve used several versions of JBuilder, tried out Forte, and one other one whose name escapes me at the moment.
I did not use Eclipse. I haven’t used anything that has SWT, I bailed on Java before that came about. Is there a native widget set for every platform Java runs on?
I ended up just using Emacs, on both linux and windows.
Personally, I like VS.Net, it’s responsive, configurable, and does what I want it to. To each their own, I suppose.
— Matthew Gardiner —
My development machine is not a cheapskate machine. Unfortunately, a lot of times customers have those.
An interesting story though. I wrote a medium-sized app for a company, and did it in Java. It ran fine on my development machine, but sluggishly when deployed. The company finally had to upgrade several machines to get the app to run reasonably, which didn’t reflect well on me. I recently took one of the old machines as a testbed, ported the app over to c# (mainly to try out dotnet), cleaned it up, and tried it. It ran great! On the old machine. When I showed the customer, they immediately dumped the java version for the dotnet one. Anecdotal, I know, but my experience, after doing both real-world java and dotnet development, dotnet is better. Just my own opinion of course, I’m sure there will be other people with stories that imply the exact opposite.
Your question about OS vs apps is kind of lame. Kind of like asking which is more important on a car: the wheels or the engine? Which is the more important organ: the heart or the lungs?
From a day-to-day, get-things-done perspective, the application is perceived to be more important. Which is ENTIRELY the reason why writing sluggish apps that don’t integrate very well with the OS just isn’t an option for me. Perhaps SWT fixed a lot of the UI glitches with Java that irked me, I don’t know. I burned that bridge a while ago. I’m content with dotnet, as are my customers.
> I did not use Eclipse. I haven’t used anything that has
> SWT, I bailed on Java before that came about. Is there a
> native widget set for every platform Java runs on?
Yes, I think they recently finished MacOSX port of SWT. Eclipse is available for the following platforms:
Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
Linux (x86/Motif)
Linux (x86/GTK 2)
Solaris 8 (SPARC/Motif)
QNX (x86/Photon)
AIX (PPC/Motif)
HP-UX (HP9000/Motif)
MacOSX
And it is really great. But, you are right, EMacs is a really good editor.
I can’t have you saying such absolute lies (EMacs is a really good editor), when everyone knows the one true editor is vi.