Letters to the Editor: 'Rumble' causes a stir

Andrig, Michael Monteiro: In the article, I say that .Net locks you into Microsoft, which may or may not be an issue depending upon the organization. I agree that choosing a vendor represents an important decision. You certainly don't want to make a sizable investment in a vendor unable to stand the test of time. However, many companies have and continue to bet that Microsoft will continue to thrive. Sure, life offers no guarantees, but few things come with such assurances. Further, vendor dependence, though perhaps to a lesser degree, exists in the J2EE (Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition) world as well. I'm sure you would agree that while a company can choose any J2EE vendor, it often becomes impractical to move to another vendor once a choice has been made. As for your second point about Microsoft's reliability, you are correct to say that one cannot achieve 99.999-percent reliability with a server operating system alone (you mention clustering). That reliability level requires a combination of technology (software and hardware), highly trained people, and solid processes. To help people achieve that reliability level, Microsoft offers the Windows Datacenter Program that outlines a series of rigorous performance and customer-service requirements that original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) must meet. From an operating system perspective, an Aberdeen Group report, "Proving-the-Point: Interviews with Next-Generation Windows 2000 Dot.coms," concluded that customers achieved 99.967-percent reliability using Windows 2000 without additional hardware support. Humphrey Sheil: Vendor lock-in represents one of the major differences between the two platforms. .Net represents complete and total lock-in to the Microsoft technology stack, while J2EE allows you to build applications against a common specification, then pick your preferred vendor. Michael's point concerning moving from vendor to vendor within the J2EE world formerly was relevant and continues to be for certain applications and vendors, but today a well-constructed application will port quite easily from one vendor to another. I have personally ported applications across BEA WebLogic, JBoss, and IronFlare Orion. Most problems encountered were incorrect interpretations of the Enterprise JavaBean (EJB) specification by application code, not by the vendor's implementation.