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Mono-culture And The .NETwork Effect

Posted by timothy on from the who's-zoomin-who dept.

Sun Tzu writes "This article discusses the dangers posed by a very successful Mono project. Microsoft has several means at their disposal to effectively shut down Mono if it should ever gain critical mass. Unfortunately, Linux would be the big loser if that were to happen."

2 of 502 comments (clear)

  1. Variety by Ycros · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Linux's strength lies in its variety, not everyone will commit to developing with mono.
    There will always be alternatives.

    Whereas with Windows development everyone and their dog are jumping into .net.

    You don't have to use mono on Linux, on Windows this is becoming less of a choice.

  2. Re:I've said it before, and I'll say it again.... by danheskett · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, no, no.

    You are bigtime wrong.

    .NET is MS reading the writing on the wall: namely, that Windows is a dying brand, that will not be relevant in the long-term future as a major cash cow.

    "Little" OS's chipping at Windows: Linux, MacOS, etc will eventually force desktop OS's to be commoditized, and MS knows this, and realized it a long time ago.

    .NET is a 10-year hedge against that. Thanks to .NET, MS has the ability to ditch Windows in the future. As Windows fades, MS can be assured that its other cash cows - MS Office, the backend products, etc are still viable and dont need rapid porting to a new platform.

    Look at it this way: .NET ensures MS's relevance even if Windows fails. Virtually all of the Windows software developed in the next decade will be developed with varying degress of support for .NET. Even now its starting to trickle into the marketplace. Desktop software, server-side software, everything. Even games will soon be enginered with maanged C# code. MS has started using it for their internal development of various products. As hardware adapts and as performance is tweaked and improved, everything MS writes will be done with .NET. At that point - 5 years, 10 years, etc - in the future MS will have successfully allowed themselves to be #1 regardless of hardware vendor, architecture, operating system, and even written language!

    Sun is virtually a solved problem: they are sick company who cannot continue to compete with MS in the fashion it has been. COntinued massive losses pile up to spending cuts and focusing only on profitable products. McNealey already is having to focus on profitable businesses at the expense of "long-term vision". Shareholders won't tolerate the types of losses that Sun has posted recently for very long. As it is Sun isn't even profiting from Sun as much as other major players: that's a bad thing from a business perspective.

    It all boils down to this: keeping .NET around, healthy, and adopted for alot of software development is currently in MS's best interests. It means that even if they are directly profiting they will be relevant no matter what happens in the industry.

    In another decade moving to .NET now will be seen by analysts as MS's most brillant move. Windows decline has begun in ernest. Linux is on the rise. Apple is on the (modest) rise. But yet MS will continue to thrive. And be poised to be viciously competitive regardless of what the "next big thing" is.