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.NET beats J2EE for development work in 2004

  • Article

Do you still think .NET is “not yet?“  Forrester Research recently published a survey of 878 North American technology decision makers asking what their primary development environment for 2004 will be: .NET or J2EE.

The answer: Overall, the majority of respondents, 56%, say .NET is their primary development environment compared to 44% for J2EE. While the numbers vary by industry, business services (64% .NET vs 36% J2EE) and the public sector (66% .NET versus 35% J2EE) have an even more pronounced .NET advantage. This is pretty good considering we only shipped two years ago :)

My personal opinion is that this research highlights the importance of interoperability across platforms and how the industry should make platform interop as painless as possible. If I'm a developer, I should at least know how to interoperate across platforms, but understanding both platforms will make me a much more valuable asset to my company. If you want to know how to get started interoperating across platforms, you should read the .NET and J2EE interoperability guide that PAG published or pick up a copy of Simon Guest's .NET and J2EE Interoperability Toolkit.

PS: The full Forrester report is now available on MSDN (Question 3.2) thanks to Duncan and his blazingly fast publishing skills!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    May 12, 2004
    Since .NET includes VB, ASP and everything else, I'm surprised it's even that close since there are lots more VB and ASP developers out there. This is not that big a deal, and in fact shows Java in a better light. The better comparison is C# versus Java, and in this case Java kills C# by a wide margin.
  • Anonymous
    May 13, 2004
    [Smells like a troll but...]

    For clarity, .NET doesn't include VB and ASP and J2EE != Java. While you might argue that people taking the survey don't know the difference, I think that applies to both platforms. If you look at Amazon.com, under programming languages>Java, the 2nd best selling book in the Java category is "Programming Perl", while #6 is "JavaScript: the Definitive Guide".
    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/new-for-you/top-sellers/-/books/3608/books/2/ref=pd_hn_ts_b/102-3513526-9890562

    Let's take a step back and look at statistics from 2002, and you'll see that J2SE/J2EE was used for the majority of development.
    "48.8 percent of respondents indicated that they are currently developing apps for either Java 2 Standard Edition or Java 2 Enterprise Edition, and 51.8 percent said that they expect to be building new apps for J2SE or J2EE within the next year."
    Source: http://www.sdtimes.com/news/057/story7.htm

    Or stats from Mark Driver of Gartner (June 2002)
    '....NET is supplanting Microsoft DNA, not Java. So by 2005 Java's share grows as always (to 40 percent), .NET eats up Microsoft DNA's share (to 40 percent), and the entrenched proprietary leftovers—4GL, AS/400, RPG, and mainframe COBOL—end up with the remaining 20 percent. No shop that's already Java-established is contemplating .NET. Java is holding its own."
    Source: http://www.fawcette.com/reports/javaone/032702/javapro_presents/default.asp

    Yet, in the 2004 Forrester Research report, we see that not only that the majority of development will be on .NET, but that companies are either switching platforms or not continuing to develop on J2EE. This quote is taken directly from the Forrester report: "Surprisingly, only 55% of Sun's customers said that they will use J2EE for the majority of their development work during the next 12 months".

    I still agree with Mark that we will have a two platform world, and his points that platform interoperability is of the utmost importance.
  • Anonymous
    May 13, 2004
    Are you clueless or something? The guy obviously refers to VB.NET and ASP.NET which I'm sure is counted as part of ".NET". Thus, you have the entire VB and ASP .NET (of which a substantial, if not all, proportion of developers in are cannibalized from VB and ASP) . Therefore, this is not exactly a surprise that there are more VB.NET+ASP.NET developments going out there.

    So, in the end, what's simply happening is that ".NET" is cannibalizing the old Microsoft VB and ASP developer population and shops.

    What's more interesting would be whether C# is actually making any dent on the VB developers moving to Java (which was the purpose of C#), and according to the most recent surveys, up to 31% of disaffected VB developers still are planning on moving to Java (with a similar percent moving to C#)

    Also, if you look at jobs for C#, and popularity ranking of the languages, it basically has flat-lined since the hype in 2001/2002.

    Here's an interesting link I read:
    http://www.jroller.com/page/kalimantan/20040510#java_accelerating_above_perl_php






  • Anonymous
    May 13, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    May 13, 2004
    [eee said] Are you clueless or something? The guy obviously refers to VB.NET and ASP.NET which I'm sure is counted as part of ".NET". Thus, you have the entire VB and ASP .NET (of which a substantial, if not all, proportion of developers in are cannibalized from VB and ASP) . Therefore, this is not exactly a surprise that there are more VB.NET+ASP.NET developments going out there.

    [I respond]
    When I said VB and ASP, I was specifically differentiating them from their .NET counterparts, VB.NET and ASP.NET. I think we are in agreement then, the majority of development is not on Java/J2EE, but rather using Microsoft technology.

    [eee said]
    What's more interesting would be whether C# is actually making any dent on the VB developers moving to Java (which was the purpose of C#), and according to the most recent surveys, up to 31% of disaffected VB developers still are planning on moving to Java (with a similar percent moving to C#)

    [I respond]
    Where did you get this statistic?

    [eee said]
    Also, if you look at jobs for C#, and popularity ranking of the languages, it basically has flat-lined since the hype in 2001/2002.

    [I respond]
    C# has not flat lined, what statistics are you looking at? I use Gartner which says that:
    - “By 2006, the C# community will dramatically increase, to 2.5 million developers”

    [I respond]
    1. You still haven't explained why the majority of development is now .NET
    2. How do you account for the fact that ASP.NET now has more web sites then JSP?
    http://blogs.msdn.com/danielfe/archive/2004/03/24/95547.aspx
    3. Comparing Java to C# is a bit unfair as you are comparing multiple companies to one language. What would be interesting is to see a particular vendor stack, say IBM WebSphere versus Microsoft. J2EE is, after all, just a specification.
    4. Do you agree that since both platforms will co-exist, interoperability is important?
  • Anonymous
    May 13, 2004
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  • Anonymous
    May 13, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    May 13, 2004
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  • Anonymous
    May 13, 2004
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  • Anonymous
    May 14, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    May 14, 2004
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  • Anonymous
    May 14, 2004
    By the way, one other thing, I disagree about the poster's comparison of the forceable movement of VB developers and COM developers to dotnet to the rise of new technologies (which are still Java) in Java. I have several VB friends, and at least 2/3 of them started learning Java after complaining vehemently about VB.NET. Search the newsgroups and discussion groups and you will see the same thing. AS far as I can tell, there is no big arguments going on about JSF or Struts. In fact, these are simply additions to the current technologies - they are still Java in other words.
  • Anonymous
    May 14, 2004
    Well, I've read some of the previous comments and I must say the level of "skewed" interpretations is pretty strong.

    Anyways, another thing that I saw was your reliance on point80 (?) for their survey of IIs versus Apache usage in the top 1000 sites (in the US?). In fact, there have been some talk that (1) This is another organization funded by Microsoft; (2) It only looks at the main server, even though there may be other servers in a farm; (3) Bad data has sometimes been seen - e.g. at one time, they were reporting IIs 6 usage in companies well before IIS6 was released.

    Another look at HTTPS usage shows that Apache is ahead 48% to 42%. And of course, if you look at the entire internet (48 million sites surveyed), it's not even a competition anymore, with Apache steadily reaching towards 70% of all web servers.

    The point is though that Apache usage will only grow with time, even in top organizations, as they realize it's free, much more stable than IIs and more secure, and of course, it's part of the Linux brigade. All Microsoft is can do is a holding action against it.

    You'll of course disagree, but what can I say, that's the truth. Closing your eyes to it is similar to Netscape not figuring out that by bundling IE with Windows desktop, you effectively killed them.

    Bye!







  • Anonymous
    May 14, 2004
    [Jay said]
    I think the prevalent thinking right now is that C# has missed the mark already. There may have been concern a year or two ago, but the fact is Java programmers seem more concerned nowadays about EJB3 vs JDO or Swing vs SWT, or what Hani thinks in the BileBlog. Just check out www.theserverside.com or Javablogs.com.

    [I respond]
    Missed the mark? Then how do you explain the javalobby thread on wanting .NET features for Java? Or this story from news.com highlighting how IBM and JBoss are worried about the success of C#?

    http://news.com.com/2100-1007_3-5081831.html
    "Indeed, JBoss's interest in making AOP more widely available to Java developers through standardization stems from Microsoft's success with C#, a language that emulates many of the qualities of Java. JBoss executives said Microsoft's multiyear effort to supplant Java with C# is paying off.

    "JBoss and IBM share a common concern over the popularity of C# over Java," Bickel said. "

    [Jay said]
    In the end, whether Java is open sourced or not (a big disaster for Microsoft if it does), the two communities will probably continue to provide strength to one another. As mentioned in one blog, there are more Java projects in the premier open source repository sourceforge.net than PHP or Perl!

    [I respond]
    I think all communities learn from one another, and that's a good thing for everyone involved. Lots of C# developers use unit testing (nUnit) and build systems (nAnt) that are open source projects on SourceForge. Since you mentioned SourceForge, I really don't think the total # of open source projects statistic you mentioned is a good representation. The reason I say this is that if you search for Java projects, you'll notice that only 3,211 of the 12,000+ Java projects have any activity percentile or activity ranking, meaning that 70%+ are inactive. You could also argue that a better measure of open source projects wouldn't be PHP & Perl, but rather the total # of C or C++ projects which dominate all other SourceForge language projects .

    [Jay said]
    I have several VB friends, and at least 2/3 of them started learning Java after complaining vehemently about VB.NET. Search the newsgroups and discussion groups and you will see the same thing. AS far as I can tell, there is no big arguments going on about JSF or Struts

    [I respond]
    What were the complaints about VB.NET? What feature(s) in Java did they need that weren't in VB.NET? What tool(s) do your friends use for developing Java applications? On the JSF versus Struts thing, I was responding to the upgrade cycle argument, not lambasting change. Technology changes and evolves, whether it is MS technology or not.

    [Jay says]
    Anyways, another thing that I saw was your reliance on point80 (?) for their survey of IIs versus Apache usage in the top 1000 sites (in the US?). In fact, there have been some talk that (1) This is another organization funded by Microsoft; (2) It only looks at the main server, even though there may be other servers in a farm; (3) Bad data has sometimes been seen - e.g. at one time, they were reporting IIs 6 usage in companies well before IIS6 was released.

    Another look at HTTPS usage shows that Apache is ahead 48% to 42%. And of course, if you look at the entire internet (48 million sites surveyed), it's not even a competition anymore, with Apache steadily reaching towards 70% of all web servers.

    [I respond]
    My reliance? I've said multiple times that there isn't definitive data on the subject matter. If you have some other data, let me know.

    I can only assume that the HTTPS and web data you show is from www.netcraft.com. As I have commented earlier on this thread, the data is flawed, and even you admit that this data isn't reliable as "it only looks at the main server" so you can't make definitive statements based on this info.

    [Jay says]
    You'll of course disagree, but what can I say, that's the truth. Closing your eyes to it is similar to Netscape not figuring out that by bundling IE with Windows desktop, you effectively killed them.

    [I respond]
    I do agree with you, given the small amount of information we have on web site market data, Apache does lead IIS on general site usage. Our goal isn't to just "close our eyes" and go away, its about solving our customers problems better then anyone else in the industry.

    Back to my integration mantra, the goal at Microsoft is to help our customers. Realistically, our customers run heterogenous environments, they aren't all Linux, or IBM, or Sun or whatever technology, they are using a mix of all of them. Maybe their entire server farm is Linux, but chances are they have a legacy mainframe somewhere, and at least some Windows desktops, and they can't assume that their partners are all running the exact same set of technology they are, or the company that they merged with is running the same technology they are. So how does Microsoft help? Given that our customers are going to be running in a heterogenous environment, our goal is to make it as painless as possible to interoperate in a heterogenous world. That's our unique value and why we are investing so much in this area.
  • Anonymous
    May 15, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    May 15, 2004
    "Given that our customers are going to be running in a heterogenous environment, our goal is to make it as painless as possible to interoperate in a heterogenous world. That's our unique value and why we are investing so much in this area."

    Well, then I guess if you care so much about your customers, then let them use J2EE. That way, everything will integrate well with everything else ;-)
  • Anonymous
    May 19, 2004
  • Do you still think .NET is “not yet?“

    Well forgetting all the research, giving my entirely subjective personal impression

    .NET is now but not here atleast in great numbers. From the open job offerings I just checked there was .NET/VB.NET/C# mentioned in around 10% of those which can be compared to each other. There's definetely growth, last I checked (long ago) there were none to speak of. Actually I'm surprised there's even that 10% (rough impression I got, not calculated) as here we are notoriously slow in finding any use for new technologies (except for cellphones and text messaging).
  • Anonymous
    May 20, 2004
    Well, a lot of the "new" jobs in ".NET" are simply the result of jobs lost in VB and ASP. So yes, in the long run, that Job market will grow larger as more jobs are lost on the VB and old-Mcrosoft tech end.

  • Anonymous
    May 25, 2004
    Oh, and it turns out the base for the survey above is of only 322 companies, most of whom are doing mixed work, and these are just opinions, not actual usage...so, it points again to the question: what's your point? since most companies were doing their work using VB/ASP before, it simply makes sense for most to drop those and go to vb.net/asp.net


  • Anonymous
    May 25, 2004
    My point is that .NET is succeeding in the marketplace. This is just one proof point and it's particularly important because the survey is on enterprise customers. According to the competition, Microsoft doesn't play in the enterprise. This proves otherwise and shows that customers are making a future investment in .NET technology. This is just one proof point among many. .NET is successful and will continue to be. The whole world is not going to Java, and this is just another way to open people's eyes to the popularity of .NET.
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    August 01, 2004
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  • Anonymous
    August 09, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    February 12, 2006
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  • Anonymous
    December 24, 2007
    j2ee &.net which one is best? &which one is mostly used in world?