[LINK] Java and .Net both a disaster: research

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

Java and .Net both a disaster: research
By Angus Kidman,
ZDNet Australia
15 November 2002
http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/enterprise/story/0,2000025001,20269968,00.htm

Still trying to decide whether your enterprise development architecture
should be based around Sun's Java or Microsoft's .NET? Perhaps you should
be more worried about whether either of them is going to work at all.

To date, around 70 percent of initial Java implementations have been
unsuccessful, according to new research from Gartner Group.

"An inordinately large number of large-scale Java projects have been
failures," said Mark Driver, Gartner research director for Internet and
ebusiness technologies.

However, Microsoft shouldn't draw any comfort from those figures as it
seeks to promote its .NET technology strategy either. In all likelihood,
the failure rate for early implementations of .NET systems will be similar,
Driver said.

"The only practical way to mitigate the risk [of a failed implementation]
is to outsource development."

Despite those problems for early adopters, Gartner is predicting that by
2005, the battle for enterprise development supremacy will be a
neck-and-neck two horse race, with Java and .NET each commanding around 40
percent of the market.

"Most larger organisations are going to have both platforms," said Driver.
"They have become de facto standards." Both Microsoft and Sun have recently
confessed to flaws in their overall strategy.

Earlier this week, Microsoft founder Bill Gates admitted that the company's
promotion of .NET had been premature.

Sun meanwhile has finally managed to achieved admission to the Web Services
Interoperability Organisation, but hasn't yet achieved its ambition of a
board seat.

-- 
If you stop every time a dog barks, your road will never end
-- an Arabian Proverb

Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
brd@austarmetro.com.au