http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107_2-998330.html By Coach Wei
Special to ZDNet
April 25, 2003, 6:31 AM PT
COMMENTARY--Whether or not Microsoft?s new Windows Server 2003 software has .Net in its name, it is clear the company?s real commitment is to its Windows operating system. Obviously, it makes business sense for Microsoft to want to continue generating demand for its flagship products, especially now that action in the industry is moving away from the desktop, where Microsoft rules, toward the Web where competition is king.
However, the Web?s powerful influence on how applications are written and deployed requires all of us in the software industry, including Microsoft, to adapt to this latest IT evolution. Therefore, it also makes good business sense for developers and their customers to think beyond the Windows platform as they build software for a Web-centric environment.
Right now, Microsoft has a strong foothold among developers, who tend to find its development tools easy to use. Industry experts estimate that 40 percent of software applications worldwide are written for the Windows platform. That?s a healthy share of the market, and will remain a significant platform well into the future.
However, ignoring the market for other platforms is too risky for developers. Recent IDC projections for the worldwide application market indicate that no single platform will dominate the industry, but instead, applications will continue to be deployed on a variety of platforms. A Web-centric computing environment is currently increasing the variety of platforms, devices and networks on which applications will need to run. As developers we need to be skilled on platforms our customers want, from Windows to UNIX, mainframes and Linux, if we are to be successful in our individual careers, or as independent software vendors.
Developers thrive on creativity and innovation. The growth of the software industry proves that. But innovation and creativity can be stifled when only one company controls the code. Developers are prevented from moving quickly on their own to make improvements, correct flaws, or invent new ways to do things. Instead, they need to wait for the company who owns the code to figure it out. In contrast, an open platform creates communities like Eclipse and Apache, which contribute improvements and fosters innovation at will. There are now some two million Java programmers among the seven million professional developers worldwide, and they continue to create momentum for the growth of open rather than proprietary systems.
When developers build an application using open standards, the application can be deployed on any platform. It can be modified quickly, and can easily interface with other applications and services based on a variety of technologies. It can be flexible, and reconfigurable to meet rapidly evolving business needs. All of which gives the application broader appeal to customers, lowers development costs, and creates greater market opportunity for developers. Instead, a proprietary platform, such as Windows, locks the developer and customer into a single platform, limits inter-operability with other applications and devices, and means additional development costs if the application is moved to a non-Windows platform. Microsoft may be positioning its .NET initiative as integrated Web services, but its development environment remains solely within the proprietary Windows platform, offering some present advantages, but also long term limitations.
As developers and independent software vendors, we need to weigh our existing relationships with Microsoft against the need to respond to the marketplace by offering our applications on multiple platforms. Even IBM, once viewed as the epitome of proprietary computing, recognizes the new market forces and embraces multiple platforms as well as open systems, such as Java and Linux.
The overwhelming success of the Web has taught us the power of a single set of communication standards. Now the industry needs to continue the momentum toward easier, more efficient, cheaper computing systems by continuing the move to open standards. It?s time for Microsoft to also see the world beyond Windows and to supply products that interoperate in what will always be a world of multiple, evolving non-proprietary standards.
biography
Coach Wei currently serves as Chief Technology Officer for Nexaweb Technologies , a software company that develops and markets open standards-based Smart Client software for enabling next generation smart Web applications. Previously, he played a key role at EMC Corporation in the development of a new generation of storage network management software. Mr. Wei has his Masters from MIT, holds several patents, is the author of several technology publications, and is an industry advocate for the proliferation of open standards.
