"Freeman P. Pascal IV" wrote:
> ...
> Though I have been a life long user of Unix/Linux
> and perfer coding in Java, I have to admit that
> Microsoft may have hit upon something with .NET
> especially if they can replicate Java's portability
> and advance tech like Jini.
>
> -Freeman
Lets look at the history of ".NET"
Version 1 of Windows CE died.
No-one would buy a bloated, slow, expensive OS for portable devices.
It was kept on life-support by MS PAYING Clarion to keep building the
AutoPC.
MS kept working on CE and pushing it, hoping for traction in the
marketplace.
JAVA was making inroads into the embedded market.
MS tried to get into the set-top box arena, but was blown off by the
cable companies, who refused to buy into a closed, third-party OS that
would make them dependant on a single supplier for the success of their
businesses.
They're too smart to lock into MS.
Newer versions of CE also met with failure.
There were no volume products running CE until the i-Paq.
(Compaq has been MS's largest customer for many years)
That single product saved CE from certain death.
But they needed JAVA to tie it to the enterprise systems to make it
really work.
MS came out with MS-J++, the "write once, run anywhere (provided its on
a Windows platform because we bastardized the language)" platform that
would connect the desktop and CE.
Sun took them to court over violation of the JAVA license (though shalt
not issue something that's not REAL JAVA and call it JAVA).
Sun won the lengthy court battle and MS was REALLY pissed about it!
MS had to stop selling the product, or quit calling it JAVA.
They renamed it "MS C-Sharp".
It died a horrible death, like CE version 1 did.
But MS doesn't give up.
They heaped marketing push on it, and probably paid people to use it
like Clarion and the AutoPC.
Still, it was a dog. What does a JAVA clone that lacks the portability
and security of JAVA have to offer the world?
Meanwhile, JAVA is the deFacto standard in Set-top boxes, and now
Telematics (car navigation and entertainment systems) and is rapidly
taking over the cell-phone market too!
(the "Stinger" platform is another market dog)
But MS doesn't give up.
So they did what they always do when something doesn't sell.
Give it a new name, and throw marketing dollars at it.
Hence, you have .NET -- WinCE and J++ bundled together.
.NET is trying to do what JAVA has already done.
It's just a couple years too late, and way behind Sun and IBM.
They are trying to compete against JAVA, and they haven't a hope in hell
of catching up, especially with IBM (a company 3x the size of MS)
pushing JAVA as the holy grail of software!
J2ME/CDC with the Personal Profile of AWT graphics will be the standard
for Internet Appliances in the near future.
MS will always have some sales success to those who don't know any
better.
And they will leverage their market-share on the desktop to as much
advantage as possible.
But I predict that JAVA on Linux on ARM hardware will power over 90% of
all portable devices with a GUI and/or wireless connection within 3
years.
The only disruption that we at Techsol foresee is IBM's 405LP PowerPC
CPU, which will be the first 32-bit CPU to offer the low-power and code
density of ARM.
And that's why Techsol will be supporting IBM's PPC in addition to ARM's
720T, 922T, and Intel's X-Scale platforms; running our port of Linux and
Sun's JVM.
But that's just my opinion ...
Brian
PS: There's a web-site called handhelds.org that explains how to replace
WinCE with Linux on a Compaq i-Paq ... and the WEB site is paid for by
Compaq and supported by engineers on Compaq's staff ... makes you wonder
where MS's biggest customer is headed ...
"5/8/2002
HP/Compaq merger completed. HP Jornada will be discontinued in
favor of HP iPAQ. HP Labs will continue to support Linux on the
iPAQ. In particular, we plan to complete the Linux port to the
Jornada 56x."
-- from Handhelds.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Brian Empey, P. Eng.
President
Technical Solutions Inc.
Unit #1 7157 Honeyman St
Delta BC Canada, V4G 1E2
www.techsol.ca
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
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