ISVs on Web Services, Java and .Net

"Microsoft actually supports what people are calling 'Web services' - SOAP, xML, etc. - better than Java," says Randy Starr, Countermind's director of mobile and wireless solutions practice. "Microsoft designed .NET optimally use what the company calls Web services.

"Visual Studio .NET is very good at integrating Microsoft products. It's a very easy, tightly integrated environment that produces strong, quick applications. .NET CF is still relatively immature. It's not as flexible or proven as Java in the tough stuff, i. e., really large, scaling systems. But it's easier to use out of the box.

"On the Java side, people are adding Web services to existing applications; that adds complexity and overhead. A good Java programmer could argue that he could do faster without Web services than you could do it with .NET. Other people would say that Java has been doing Web services for years; it's just not Microsoft's Web Services."