The Big Picture
Choosing Between the .Net and J2EE Frameworks
By Al Williams
How would you like to travel back to 1980 and invest in Microsoft? H. G. Wells notwithstanding, you won't get that chance. However, some of the Net's biggest companies are vying to recreate an opportunity to dominate the marketplace as Microsoft did during the PC revolution.
Not surprisingly, one of these companies is Microsoft itself. The other major contender—and the one that has a significant lead—is Sun Microsystems. Both companies have launched impressive programs to lure developers into their camps. Sun's Open Net Environment (Sun ONE, which uses J2EE—Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition) and Microsoft's .Net both try to be all things to all people. Both sides in this battle want to be a one-stop shop for developers.
You'll find that J2EE and .Net try to provide roughly the same services to developers, but in different ways. That's not surprising since .Net is—at least for now—Windows-centric and language neutral, while J2EE is Java-centric and platform neutral. The key is to determine which framework provides you with the most benefits and the fewest drawbacks. Another important question is how much functionality these frameworks deliver today.
What's the Problem?
No one buys a hammer just for the sake of owning a hammer; you buy a tool to perform a particular job.
