Microsoft has held a workshop to demonstrate its latest
development tool, Visual Studio .net 2003. The company said the
product represents the easiest way to build web
services.
The first version of VS.net, launched just over a year ago, gave
developers a route into building applications using the .net
environment. With this second release, Microsoft sees VS.net
combined with Windows 2003 as the key to its application server
strategy. Both products are due to be released on 24 April.
Ivo Salme, product manager for .net develop tools at Microsoft
said, "The combination of the two products represents, an
application server in a box. We are providing the easiest way to
build web services."
Improvements to the VS.net development system include a C# Forms
Designer utility for building data entry forms, and a built-in
database connector for Oracle.
In terms of developer productivity, Microsoft sees .net as way
ahead of Java 2 Enterprise Edition. Salme pointed to a recent study
conducted by the Middleware Company, which looked at the complexity
of a .net application development against a J2EE application.
According to Salme, the Microsoft application using .net required
just 2,096 lines of code, compared to 14,000 with J2EE.
"This shows a dramatic productivity gain for developers using
.net," he said. When translated into the days spent programming,
Salme said that while the .net program took two weeks of
development time, J2EE took 10 weeks.
So is Microsoft offering an application server in a box?
Gary Barnett, an analyst with Ovum, said the notion of web
services was more completely supported by .net than in J2EE. "Java
has a huge contribution to make but it does face competition from
Microsoft," he said.
Microsoft is a viable alternative to Java, he added. "It does
not make any sense comparing .net just to J2EE, particularly if you
consider .net as a server framework and technology platform coupled
with VS.net, which is one of the most compelling development tools
available," he said.
Strictly speaking, Barnett said, .net should be compared to BEA
Weblogic and IBM Websphere, both of which are regarded as highly
sophisticated application servers. "Microsoft has a very complete
solution. The research from the Middleware Company presents a range
of lessons for the Java community."
He said that developing Enterprise Java Beans applications was
still too complex. "Java tools suppliers like Borland are making it
simpler to build EJB applications, but with VS.net it is far easier
to build server applications."
While the results of .net developer productivity are
significant, Barnett feels there is a need for further independent
research to establish just how well .net compares to J2EE
applications servers.
Looking at the Transaction Processing Council’s benchmark data,
Barnett pointed to the lack of any benchmarking data on J2EE
application servers. "I throw the gauntlet down to IBM and BEA to
implement their applications against TPC benchmarks," he said.
Mitul Mehta, managing director at research firm TekPlus, is not
convinced the productivity gains from .net are significant. "It
really depends on where the applications are implemented," he
explained.
Mehta said .net is still a "work in progress" and there are more
web services to be developed, along with further improvements.
"J2EE is much more robust. In a mission-critical environment, users
need to compromise," he said.
Mehta believes users will make the choice between J2EE and .net
depending on the type of application they want. Questions remain
over whether the two competing technologies will integrate. In
theory they should, but Mehta added "It is too early to see any
real examples of J2EE integrating with .net."