Do not underestimate the power of the human brain: a few brilliant minds can defeat all the minds that Microsoft or Sun have.

A revolution is in the works, and soon to be unleashed ...

I work in the cable industry, secure content delivery (ie: distributing content from studios/aggregatiuon points to the Cable sites) - we would not even consider deploying any of our dist. apps on anything M$ with the current state of it's security. What enterprise app ( serious biz, not the local Pet Store - real $$$ ) would put their assets out there for the taking on a Microsoft server. Until M$ can provider a secure environment, what mission critical apps will be deployed on it, using .NET or any other framework?????

I agree with a lot of people about the strengths and weaknesses of both the technologies. I use both J2EE and .NET and know when to use what. If I have to write a core enterprise server with high volume and high scalability requirements, I need to use J2EE. If I have to develop some low volume standalone web services, I do that using .NET. But what concerns me is that Microsoft investing money on some companies and asking them to use .NET. That kind of make the companies CEO/CIOs to force the IT to use .NET everywhere. That really sucks. With 50 billion in cash, Microsft can do all these crap to get Java out of the door in the big enterprises. This may sound bad, but that's the truth. In this country MONEY TALKS AND BULLSHIT WORKS.....

In response to George Giles's comment "Sun is nearly a corpse, they have made the classic mistake of thinking they are both a software and a hardware company.....Microsoft has successfully stayed clear of that trap" I must remind him of Microsoft's attempt to market a diskless network workstation a couple of years back. That project fell on it's ugly face even before anyone had the chance to tell MS what a fiasco that was.
Let us also not forget the MS attempt to encapsulate it's CE OS into a proprietary PDA...again it fell on it's ugly face.
True, MS has recently steered clear of trying to become a hardware vendor (with exception of the X-Box), but not after multiple failures of it's own.

I agree to Mr/Ms Real World's comment.
We also should specify the context, is it enterprize-wide app or open-internet based. obviously Sun's EJB paradigm does not feet to the second because one can not plug wire RMI into internet. thats why Sun's block is embracing web services. On the other side in enterprize-wide apps the idea of managing all the GUI related objects with EJB is driving me nuts. Where you can have intelligent enough front-ends to take care of their mess! you just need pump back and forth the data frame in XML and that's all.
Also the fact that Microsoft has always been good to hack a app (RAD) is unbeatable.
Another point worth mentioning is that aesthetically Java and related technologies are number one in design and the extra classes in .NET can be replenished easily in 1.5 if necceessary at all (Messaging API is absolute neccessity which is missing I recommend JMS).
Last word in regard to Mr/Ms Real World's statement I can build same apps you built in EJB or .NET merely by Java and XML!
Cheers.

IBM is a world leader. I have used IBM390-based DB2 for 10 years. I am forced to deal with Sybase and Oracle at this point and it is unpleasant. Most of the time it feels like traveling to Erope and renting a FIAT after you drove BMW for many years.
I am working with WSAD and WAS 4.0 now and both products are good and improving. I don't care much for the developers complaining of the complexities of WAS - too bad. It is a best product on the interprise level. Trust me, I have been to WebLogic horror show.

Thank you.

Name one decent software product that Microsoft has ever developed? Tell me how an operating system that requires a reboot when you install Yahoo Instant Messenger is a good design? Tell me how word processing software should *ever* bloat to nearly 1/2 GB? Name one decent product that can back up your claim?

Using strongarm tactics and poor design to corner the market does not make Microsoft the experts in software development.

Java is better designed language than anything Microsoft has ever conceived of, and that's why it was adopted by the development community which brought it into the corporate world. C# is a poor attempt to follow on Java's success.

Please...

How long are people going to continue to beat this dead horse? Which is best? Last I heard both Sun and Microsoft products worked. Pick the one you like and leave it at that. Leave the arguing to the childish billionaires McNealy and Gates. If you want to criticize something why don't you criticize Sun, IBM and Oracle outsourcing their customer support to India. These have all been successful companies without sending jobs overseas. If we don't do something about this the only jobs in the US will be sales positions. All the software development will be done in India and China.

Microsoft focuses on marketing, user features, and time to market, in that order. Reliability, scalability, security, etc., etc. are all handled if they manage to eliminate their competition. Those that go to .Net can expect a weak infrastructure (although their loud and prolific marketers will, of course, tell you different) for five more years.

The truth is that one tool does not fit all needs. Java will fill the niche of the industrial strength solution, and Microsoft will likely be able to capture the developers whose work isn't as critical, who like the wider training opportunities, ease of adoption, promise that it everything will work if you just do it their way. Some people buy the house for the good plumbing, some buy it for the nice paint job.

Fortunately, I think programming languages and application development are sufficiently different arenas from operating systems that the same dynamics that have given Microsoft its monopoly on the desktop won't carry over. Unless, of course, they are allowed to expand their anticompetitive practices.

As one that has some knowledge in this area, I can tell you that Sun from a technological sense is extremely healthy. From a industry positioning sense it is also extremely healthy. From a revenue and economic position - it is subject to the same economic conditions that are problematic for everyone - including Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, HP and others. The economy is in a very nasty downturn. I spend a lot of time looking at fundamentals not at stock charts - my thoughts are that Sun fundamentals are very good. Market analysts desire quick returns on investments - the current market is not about quick returns. The current economic climate has been bleak and has been made more bleak by a number of factors that transcend the usual economic up-and-downs. Very few people can predict when and how we get out of the current technology recession/depression.

It is pretty clear that Java has taken hold and is dominating the enterprise and mobile markets. Very few technically savvy people even on the Microsoft side would argue against that. Meanwhile, as Bill Gates himself has suggested - Microsoft .NET has not been as widely accepted within the Microsoft community as they had anticipated (he gave acceptance a C). Other would not be so kind. Over 90% of the IT middleware market is Java-based. It is difficult to put .NET on truly scalable servers - Java has scaled on certain applications beyond 100 CPUs with 100 Gigabytes of memory. Scalability and security continue to haunt Microsoft. Every day seems to bring more bad news about some particular virus or security hole - this being the result of using legacy software which is based on a highly insecure model of computing.

Java is an industry. It is not a product set - as is .Net. How many C# IDEs are available ? Very few - how about for all practical purposes - one. Compare that with Java where there are many. How many commercial CLRs are available from other sources ? For all practical purposes - one. Again compare that with Java where the likes of Oracle, IBM and many others offer competing and conforming Java Virtual Machines. As a consumer you have a choice to pick the best available to you. How many operating system platforms does .Net commercially run on ? Again practically only one. Java runs on many competing operating systems and hardware platforms. Java has many, many companies spending on it, not just Sun. It is a mistake to believe that Microsoft alone can innovate - yet if you look at how .Net is advanced versus how Java is advanced you see another stark difference. For example, many companies collaborated on specifying what would go into the Java Virtual Machine (1.4). How many companies had input to what would go into the the current CLR ?

In the end, Sun is one company among many that is using Java. Microsoft will not destroy Sun - nor will it hurt Java. It may in the end make it better - because competition is always a good thing.

Cheers.

When an article suggests that MicroSoft
provides great software andSun should stick to what it knows best (implying the should not focus on Software) They should take a look at JAVA which worked right out of the BOX.
Then tell me the name of a software component os similar magnatude that MicroSoft launched with out hanging the machine from time to time.
The one thing MicroSoft still has not learned from SUN or IBM is, software quality. IBM stuff works, Sun stuff works Microsoft stuff works some of the time.

I think you misread the article. Gosling says "we've been building distributed systems for years out [sic] using CORBA and RMI".

I'm assiming that's a misprint and he said "without using". Distributed computing does not imply TCP/IP or any of that other stuff. Distributed applications have been developed for years without this technology. Newer technologies like TCP/IP and the high availability of network resources just make it earier to do today, in the (new) form of "web services".

In my opinion if Microsoft had tried to produce a product that worked properly or at least 95% error free without the attitude of produce it wither it works or not. If IBM had given OS2 the capability to read and write DOS formatted records. This would be a different world. True Microsoft’s vision has been exceptional but if it were not so flawed in practicality they would be better off. With the mix of Linux and Java if developers utilize the proper development of systems with open source there will be no need for Microsoft. Microsoft’s next step is to lease their software so no one can control it or own it. We must be prepared for their next step. Why do you think they have heavily invested in Satellite communications? Those software developer that truly believe in producing a product that works right at least 98% error free with no deadlocks will unite we will be free of the monetary mentality of software kings.

It seems to me that sir, you are only a user of Microsoft's software and you have not been schooled in the history of computing. How it all started in the good old days, when the UI were command driven and not pretty like Microsoft's. Bill Gates is a marketing specialist, give him credit for that, but a programmer he is not. You too sir, and many other people could probably use Microsoft's products very well( remember that millions and millions of children can also use this software but still not yet able to read and write properly, it just goes to show that one does not have to read and write properly to use programs, all you need is at least the 'IQ' of a child to do so).A positive from this is that there are many lessons to be learnt.

Today in America we love things that are cheap, fast and easy. We all know we shouldn’t east junk fast-food, read trashy journalism or rely on Microsoft software, but we do. We know better but we love this stuff, for most in a secretive shameful way. This is the reason businesses like McDonalds, paparazzi benefactors like the National Enquirer and garbage bloatware like Microsoft enjoy such capitalistic success. Gates is moral? Please morality belongs to those with the biggest guns, or in post cold war America, the biggest bank account.

Perhaps the only scary thing is that unlike McDonalds and the National Enquirer, Microsoft is allowed to practice business in a shameful anti-trust fashion. But who cares? We will continue to eat our fat laden Big Macs, and watch Entertainment tonight while waiting on a Windows XP reboot after a crash.

If you whtink that we should only have one vendor for all of software you are quite mad and indeed a fool that has learned nothing from history. Open standards is a movement we can’t afford to let die, and in the interest of pure profit Mircosoft is doing everything they can to kill it.

“We must piss on Java every chance we get” excerp from a Memo to executives from Microsoft CEO Bill Gates

I guess this the new Morality...