Java has hordes of fluent programmers, years of field testing and thousands of software packages built atop it. But Microsoft has its own advantages. First, by virtue of its monopoly in desktop computer operating systems, Microsoft has a superior mechanism to distribute the infrastructure needed to run C# programs, CLI or its big brother called the .Net Framework. Microsoft is adopting that very strategy, including the .Net Framework, with Service Pack 1 for the Windows XP operating system. Second, Microsoft has persistence. The company is famed for producing software that is inferior at first but that years later becomes dominant -- for example Windows, which lagged behind the Apple operating system, and Internet Explorer, which was a pale imitation of Netscape Navigator. Rival Sun enjoys pointing to the number of registered Java programmers -- 2.6 million at present -- as evidence of its success. But the company clearly recognizes the threat of C# and its associated software. C# and the .Net Framework are included as evidence in Sun's antitrust suit against Microsoft. Sun asserts that C# is a hook planted in desktop Windows, where Microsoft is dominant, that tows Microsoft into areas where it's not as powerful -- namely, software for higher-end networked server computers where Sun is powerful. Microsoft is using the standardisation effort to indicate that C# isn't a Trojan horse for Microsoft software but rather a neutral technology open to all. To the same end, it has also released a version of the CLI -- the software apparatus to run C# programs -- under its "shared source" license. That licence permits people to see how Microsoft programmers wrote the software and to tinker with it, but not to sell products using it. Microsoft has attracted some unusual allies to C# and the CLI, including advocates of open-source software who often are opposed to Microsoft's proprietary approach to software. Among the allies is desktop Linux specialist Ximian, which with help from Hewlett-Packard and Intel is working to clone much of the C# environment in a project called Mono. Sun argues that standardizing the CLI is misleading, though, because it's only a subset of the .Net Framework. "It's like saying we're going to give a brand new car to the information technology industry, but we're going to keep the keys. That's not what standardisation is all about," said Sun spokesman David Harrah. Where Sun stands
Java, which had a comparatively ungainly interface and has suffered sluggish performance, didn't dent Microsoft's power on desktop computers, but it has caught on in mobile phones and servers. Sun had pledged to make Java a standard, first through an ISO subcommittee and then through ECMA, but reversed course in 1999, saying it wasn't willing to hand off control of the technology. Instead, it formed the Java Community Process, which lets other companies help control Java but still gives Sun a position of power. Sun's reluctance to let go of Java, which peeved allies as powerful as IBM, was not an act of mere egotism. Microsoft had licensed Java for its own use but had modified it in a way that undermined its promise of working identically on different computer types. The issue was at the heart of a four-year legal battle between Sun and Microsoft. Microsoft's coaxing of its technology into the world of standards can be seen as a victory in its long-running struggle. The ISO subcommittee's approval is "pretty major," Montgomery said. "It represents the agreement of the international technical committee members that C# and the CLI are ready to be ratified by the ISO managing body." But it's not yet the victory that counts. "ISO is a stamp of approval, which certainly helps," and ISO is better recognised than ECMA, said Illuminata's Governor. "But I believe it would be a mistake to assume that having the ISO check box ticked will make all the difference."
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