While every move Microsoft makes in the near future is likely to come under intense scrutinyâ€"following the appeals court's ruling last week in the Microsoft antitrust caseâ€"Microsoft critics say the company is continuing to try to suppress competing technologies.
Last week, the software company announced plans to work with software maker Corel to build a shared source implementation of Microsoft's C# programming language and the CLI (Common Language Infrastructure) specifications on the Windows and FreeBSD platforms. It was touted as evidence of the company's growing commitment to open standards and interoperability.
But the news fell on deaf ears as developers and competitors said the move is merely designed to suppress the growth of the Java language and environment, which are forceful competitors in the Web services arena.
Other developers are also not buying it. They said the move has less to do with those factors and far more to do with Microsoft's plans to counter the threat posed by Java on the Web services front.
C# is a Java-like programming language designed to facilitate the building of Web-based software, while CLI is a key subset of the .Net framework. Both are critical components of Microsoft's software-as-a-service .Net platform.
Rob Scoble, a beta tester and an editor at Fawcette Technical Publications, said this was just another move to counter the Web services threat posed by Java.
Some developers said Microsoft's goal was to try to drive the focus away from Java and toward C# by encouraging the development of additional versions of C# that run on multiple operating systems and hardware.
Robin Cutshaw, president of Internet Laboratories, said he did not completely believe that Microsoft is trying to be cross-platform. "It's still very much tied in with the whole Microsoft architecture," Cutshaw said. "Even though they're saying they're opening up, they're [basically] providing compiler tools and some source code related to other tools. But that doesn't really mean it's going to work cross-platform."
In fact, Microsoft's latest moves make Cutshaw even less inclined to look at C#. "It's obvious this is a jab back at Java," he said. "It galls them when something [they didn't invent] is successful, and they're going to try to eat away at Java with this."
Some developers are also skeptical that Microsoft's announcement will encourage their colleagues to give C# a try. "Most of the features in C# we already have in Java," said Suneet Shah, a Java developer and chief technology officer of Diamelle.
"If you're already using Java, and Java has a huge installed base, why would you invest in something that is kind of similar but doesn't have that installed base yet?" Shah asked.
