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Why .Net will conquer the world

John Carroll ZDNet US

Published: 23 Sep 2002 14:10 BST

.Net clearly bears a strong resemblance to Java. It offers many of the same features, while adding interesting additions of its own (code metadata, versioned assemblies, etc). Microsoft, however, is better positioned to create a cross-market software unification framework than Sun Microsystems ever was (or is). This will result in a rapid expansion in .Net's popularity which eats into Java's market share as it grows to take over the development world.

There are a number of reasons for this:

1. The breadth of Microsoft's market presence.
You would be hard pressed to find a software market where Microsoft does not have a strong presence. They have a popular database in SQL Server, a game console in Xbox, handhelds that run PocketPC, server and desktop operating systems, a software library that includes business workhorses such as the Office suite, and CRM solutions through its Great Plains division (purchased by Microsoft over a year ago), just to name a few.

Granted, other companies, notably IBM, operate in multiple software markets. IBM has not turned all of its products into Java products, however, while Microsoft plans to migrate their entire product library to .Net. The reason so many Microsoft standards have become de facto development standards is that Microsoft uses those technologies internally. COM's popularity was driven by the degree to which Microsoft used COM in its own products. This made it a business requirement for competitors to support COM, simply because their products would look less feature-rich without the reusable, cross-language COM functionality offered by Microsoft products.

With .Net, Microsoft has the ultimate software and hardware unification platform. Once all of Microsoft's product line is unified around .Net, companies that fail to become at least compatible with .Net will find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. This extends beyond the Windows universe. .Net will exist on non-Microsoft platforms due to Microsoft's Shared Source CLI (a.k.a. "Rotor"), the efforts of Ximian (through its Mono project) and dotGNU. Hooking into the pool of Windows developers will be a competitive advantage on alternative platforms, which will serve as an incentive that drives .Net adoption far beyond Windows.