JAVA VS .NET
I always get question about Java vs .Net ,so ,I tried to find few points about it and also love to have others comment on it. Thanks to Narayan, Sudhakar and Nauzad for valuable feedback.
From Narayan's Desk
My ten cents: Also find my answers in-line to your
forwarded questions.
1> When Sun entered the
Web application space, they stole everything they
could
from ASP and even now Sun has started to respond to C# in
the JDK 1.5
that will have features that are clearly
inspired directly from C#. At Java
One they announced
some kind of new desktop development system where they
want
to make the creation of GUI desktop apps easier than
VB.
NRS: It indicates that Sun in reality
accepts the technical superiority of
the C# and .NET
platform in a way.
Suggest reading the
following article as well:
Sun, Microsoft
officials face off in Java vs. .Net debate
http://www.computerworld.com/developmenttopics/development/java/story/0,10801,78026,00.html
2> Java has taken more than
a decade to mature and even today is not the
perfect
answer to many computing needs. In less than two years of
its
release .NET has praises even from their
counterparts. Recommend reading the
following
article;
http://www.computerweekly.com/Article111133.htm
http://weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/292
NRS: Notice that the executives from Borland,
IBM and others have silently
acknowledged the
acceptance of .NET in the enterprise and have not made
any
comment against .NET :-)
3>
Open source stance by big names is a gimmick to attract
developers and
small businesses. How many products
from IBM, SUN and others are really open
source
implementations? Are they giving everything that they
develop free of
cost? If so, where from their
revenues come from? If they are so open, why
are they
not supporting the CLI specification which got ratified by
a
neutral body like ECMA unlike Java? Does this mean
that they have vested
interests in protecting Java
supremacy in the whole range of their product
suits
that they sell? If these companies are so big fans of open
source why
are these companies filing IPR's on their
own company names?
NRS: I feel that open source
is a wagon being exploited by big brands
protect
their vested interests.
1) The .NET framework serves little purpose for a
CD-ROM-distributed
product, that may run on one machine / the local
LAN
at a customer's premises.
NRS: .NET Framework
and MSDE technologies (both of which are free and
distributable)
could be used in conjunction to address this with lot
of
superiority over the existing technologies.
2)
There are open-source free software including databases,
which
require no licensing fees.
NRS: Both
.NET Frmework & MSDE are free of cost and are
freely
distributable.
Suggest visting the
following link which removes the mis-conceptions that
.NET
framework
solution can't be packed into a CD-ROM for
demonstrating purposes at the
client locations.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/downloads/addins/msde/genfaq.aspx
3) The costs of developing in Java is lower,
both in terms of
costs of development software and
the availablity of skilled manpower
working with
legal products.
NRS: This statement is contrary
to the many industry reports which mention
about
Java
Developers being paid more! Suggest going through one of
the latest
reports.
And I don't think any vendor
is selling illegal products!
Average Salary by
Skill Area 2003 Report - Native Currency
http://crm.ittoolbox.com/research/2003ITSalarySurvey.asp?i=23
Single vendor solution provide lot of
productivity, maintenance and
integration benefits
while providing option for the interoperability and
integration
with other products and applications. Further they also
reduce
the TCO.
Even Sun themselves have
realized the importance of providing single vendor
solutions
and Sun ONE is nothing but presenting collection of
different
kind of tools and servers under a single
umbrella (by Sun) which they
acquired in the recent
times.
4) The availability of skilled
manpower, on opensource software,
opens up new models
for providing support on a national level.
NRS:
Because open-source software's are ''free,'' the thinking
seems to go,
it will reduce TCO. This reasoning is
flawed, because open-source software
can require more
manpower and attention to match the reliability,
availability,
and scalability of high-end Unix and Windows 2000 or XP
servers.
And there's the cost of high-availability add-ons, such
as
clustering partitioning and ''journaled'' file
systems, as well as
third-party support -- all of
which jack up the overall cost and complexity
of
open-source software.
License is free probably
has little impact on the TCO of significant
projects,
such as ERP and CRM implementations. This is because the
license
is typically less than 2% or 3% of the TCO of
such projects. - Meta Group
With regards to the
availability of skilled resources almost all the
reports
suggests that MS platform developers out
number Java Developers. So, it
would be unfair to
think that there is shortage of skilled manpower w.r.t
MS
technologies.
5) Java is a
more stable platfrom as compared to .Net, which is
fairly
new and designed to mimic J2EE.
NRS: Even the
most renowned fans of J2EE agree to the fact that J2EE
is
getting increasingly complex and feel that the
structure of the JEEP needs
some kind of overhauling.
You could go though the comments that were posted
after
the Java Pet Store Vs .NET Pet store implementation.
Most
of them even agree to the fact that the deployment of the
J2EE
application across various vendor solutions is
not so easy.
Also suggest going through my
comments in paragraphs 1 & 2 in the beginning
of
the mail
6) With a price-point of around
Rs.20,000, the product is
targeted at the mass
market. The costs of entry is significantly
lower
with Java, than with a .NET solution. At the very
least,
customers would be required to invest in a
.NET-compliant server,
resulting in investments in
both hardware and OS. With Java, the
CDROM can ship
with the necessary frameworks, for free, such as
Apache,
Struts or JBoss, and installation can be made seamless.
NRS:
Please refer to the answer provided in under question no
4
7) Java is becoming increasingly pervasive on
mobile devices,
with most major manufacturers
suppporting the standard. The wireless
offering you
are proposing will be easier with a Java solution,
rather
than having to force customers to purchase the
relatively
fewer Microsoft-compliant handheld
devices.
NRS: I am in agreement with this
statement but however am confident that
MS would come
up with a befitting answer to this. I feel that the
latest
revamping of mobile initiative also a good
thing in that direction
8) The development team
is being formed from scratch. Existing
developers can
easily move to the Java platform, at the application
development
level
NRS: Any one who is in the IT for quite
some time perhaps will not agree to
this statement
as
the ease of learning of MS tools and technologies is far
better when
compared with existing tools and
technolgies. MS technolgies are always
known for
their ease of use and faster learning.
Thanks
-Suresh