Rational Software will take over the development of J++ for MS

Software giant Microsoft has dumped its Java programming language deciding to outsource development of its J++ 6 programming application.

Rival firm Rational Software will take over the development of J++ form late next year with Microsoft's blessing.

The news is hardly surprising given that Microsoft recently endorsed XML (extensible mark-up language) saying that it plans to "program the Web" with the language.

Microsoft never fully endorsed the object-orientated Java programming architecture with its J++ tools. Instead of designing the tool to work on a multitude of platforms, which was one of the main reasons for the creation of Java, Microsoft made J++ specific to Windows environments.

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