By Nancy Daniel, VNU
Net
As Sun Microsystems celebrated the fifth anniversary of its Java
programming language last month, Microsoft was busy cranking up its
marketing machine to promote a growing armoury of potential Java
killers.
The Redmond giant’s anti-Java sentiments spring at least in part
from the hardware vendor’s decision to sue it in October 1997. Sun
claimed that Microsoft was in violation of its Java licensing
contract and had infringed copyright by developing a Windows-only
version of the technology. The case is still pending.
This week, however, Microsoft upped the ante against Sun by
ending its investment in Java. It will build no future versions of
its Visual J++ Java-based development tool and instead will resell
Rational’s equivalent as part of its forthcoming Visual Studio.Net
development suite.
The move also follows the software giant’s launch last month of
an object-oriented tool that it appears to be positioning in the
same web development space as Java. Microsoft expects to ship C# (C
sharp) in the next 12 months, and claims that it takes the best of
C and C++ and melds them into one offering.
However, some analysts believe that Microsoft will have a lot of
work on its hands to ensure that the new programming language is
well received and is in a position to catch up on Java’s five-year
lead.
Jon Collins, a senior analyst at Bloor Research, is sceptical
about whether launching a rival language is really the way forward
at all. “The future lies in interoperability. That’s where
Microsoft should be putting its efforts,” he says.
While Microsoft’s large community of developers should mean that
C# has a good chance of winning some mindshare, “that doesn’t mean
it’s going to take over the world”, adds Collins.
Tom Murphy, an analyst at the Meta Group, likewise believes that
C# has a long way to go before it can compete with Java
effectively. “I don’t see Java dying at any time in the near
future. There’s too much momentum behind it,” he says.
However, Murphy feels that Microsoft has, in some ways, been
forced to take its rival on. “If Microsoft hadn’t run into those
legal difficulties, there wouldn’t have been a need to drive up
with C#,” he claims.
Java takes on Visual Basic
The threat that Java poses to Microsoft’s leading development
environment, Visual Basic (VB), has put the vendor even more on the
defensive. Rikki Kirzner, an analyst at IDC, estimates that the
number of Java developer seats grew from 789,000 in 1998 to 1.3
million last year, and predicts that the number will rise to 1.9
million by the end of this year and to 4.4 million by 2003.
He adds that the implementation of Java packages has increased
faster than those written in any other programming language with
the exception of VB, but it may soon overtake even that.
Murphy believes, however, that C# is not simply a Java spoiler,
but that it also offers some advantages over Microsoft’s versions
of C and C++. C# is, for example, expected to make users more
productive by being less prone to errors and will include better
support for HTML. It also automates some of the code writing that
developers currently have to undertake manually.
With this in mind, Microsoft will initially target its offering
at C and C++ developers, and as a result, plans to provide them
with an easy migration path, although the software giant also
expects VB developers to use it too.
While Murphy believes this will help boost adoption of the
language, he claims that C# also has advantages over Java because
it was designed from the ground up with XML in mind. “It has
semantic controls and libraries that let you strongly take
advantage of XML,” he claims.
But functionality isn’t everything when it comes to the battle
for market share, and Murphy warns that Microsoft needs third
parties, on top of its loyal development community, to endorse the
offering.
For C# to succeed, he says, Microsoft needs standards bodies
such as the European Computer Manufacturers Association (Ecma) to
back it and other vendors to build tools and utilities around
it.
One such possible partner is Apple Computer, with which
Microsoft has traditionally had an on-off relationship. “If there
was a C# for Apple, it would make it easier to write for both of
these platforms. That would be great,” adds Murphy.
Ironically, the Linux community, although generally no fan
of Microsoft, could form another potential ally because many Linux
developers programme in C or C++. But endorsement from Ecma
would certainly provide the software giant with a PR advantage over
Sun, which withdrew attempts to have Java ratified as a de jure
standard by the body. The move laid it open to criticism that it
wanted to maintain too much control over its baby despite pitching
it to the world as open technology.
“There’s going to be a lot of flack flying around over the next
couple of years between Microsoft and Sun,” adds Murphy.
However, the struggle for dominance of the internet space in
fact began last year as a result of Microsoft’s public backing of
Soap (the simple open access protocol), which it is developing with
IBM, SAP, Ariba and Compaq.
Can Soap clean up?
Microsoft hopes that the Soap specification will be adopted by the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as the basis of the next generation
eXtensible markup language (XML) standard.
Its rationale appears to be that if developers have a reasonably
straightforward XML-based standard they can use to enable their
internet applications to talk to each other, they will be less
inclined to wade through the complex layers of the existing Java
specification.
So Soap, Microsoft reasons, could push disaffected Java
programmers into the arms of vendors that support the protocol –
something that Sun has so far declined to do.
Soap is also one of the key components of the firm’s .Net
strategy, which is intended to enable businesses to access
applications as services over the internet using not only PCs, but
mobile devices such as phones and personal digital assistants.
And Murphy believes that Microsoft hopes to dominate the market
through .Net by employing the same technique that it used with its
Windows desktop operating system.
Windows was initially merely a graphical user interface add-on
to the character-based DOS operating system and was layered on top
to provide enhanced functionality until it was robust enough to
take over from its predecessor.
So Murphy argues that Microsoft is simply trying the same
tactics again by layering Biztalk and Soap over Windows until it is
ready to take over from the older technology.
“The real debate will be in the future – Java as a platform
versus Microsoft.Net as a platform. That is the bigger battle,” he
claims.
But, as Collins points out, Microsoft failed in its attempt to
kill off the Unix operating system despite its exploitation of the
divisive vendor wars of the early 1990s. Which implies that it is
going to have to try somewhat harder if it wants to make a dent in
either Sun or Java.