A few years ago, a heated debate raged over the benefits of two competing technologies: .NET versus J2EE. Microsoft advocates affirmed that .NET was superior and likewise Java enthusiasts asserted similar observations about J2EE. As it turns out, both camps were at least partially correct.

The progression has been interesting to watch: both technologies have carved out niches on either side of the corporate firewall. For example, the large enterprise software makers - especially the major ERP vendors such as Oracle, PeopleSoft, and SAP - have developed business software applications almost exclusively based on J2EE. However, a quick glimpse behind the firewall shows that application customers are selecting .NET as the internal development tool of choice.

While each technology has a set of strengths and weaknesses, the advent of Web services has changed the paradigm because it facilitates communication between the two technologies. What's more, from the enterprise perspective J2EE and .NET are beginning to look less and less like competitive technologies and more like complementary languages working hand in hand.

.NET Preferred for Internal Custom Development
Microsoft's decision to support so many different developing environments to ensure that all are capable of producing .NET code was nothing short of brilliant. For many companies and customers of enterprise applications, this event was the single most compelling reason to transition toward a .NET environment for internal development.

Microsoft's support enabled enterprises to leverage the existing expertise of programmers with skill sets in languages such as Visual C++ and Visual Basic because these programmers could immediately begin producing applications in .NET. To add to the benefits, Microsoft provided tools and guidelines for taking the entire legacy client/server and desktop applications and porting them to Web-based environments.

As with many choices in technology, advantages gained generally also come with drawbacks. The adaptation of .NET technology comes with dependencies on platforms, browsers, and licenses from Microsoft. This fact has been the impetus for application developers to use J2EE more often than not.

Flexibility Out-values Productivity
What a developer gains in productivity from .NET is lost in flexibility and the businesses that develop enterprise applications have taken note. Although Java in a J2EE design is a considerably more difficult environment in which to program, once built, the flexibility of the application deployment and the scalability of a J2EE architecture far outweighs the additional development costs.

To put it another way, in order to develop and sell an enterprise application to the widest possible customer base, the application must run on any hardware platform, with any operating systems and without licensing fees. This must include everything from the smallest handheld device to the largest cluster of servers. To this end, there is one choice: J2EE.

Truce Between Giants
So why are these two technologies becoming complementary? The most overlooked component contributing to this trend is the unprecedented willingness of Microsoft and Sun Microsystems to agree to work together on a common standard for Web services. This now allows enterprise application customers - many of whom have already made substantial investments in one technology or another - to easily use both J2EE and .NET. Traditionally, the only choice for enabling various applications, built within these separate environments, to communicate was with extensive - if not expensive - custom development.

While some might argue that Web services is not the best possible solution for every interface, the fact that users now have a convenient method for exchanging data between enterprise applications developed in different technologies cannot be overlooked. For example, with Web services a major ERP application developed in J2EE now has the capacity to communicate with a Web portal developed in .NET.

For those that doubt the significance of the truce between Sun Microsystems and Microsoft imagine this: without the standard the enterprise software industry would be looking at years of competing technologies similar to the browser battles between Netscape and Internet Explorer that reigned in the 1990s.

The Corporate Customer Wins with Standards
Regardless of which technology is superior, the standardization of Web services brought with it the dawn of a new era in software development. End users no longer have to sink all of their hopes into one technology or the other - the freedom to choose from the best applications without concern for the core technology opens the possibility for new advancements in technology and the function of technology. In summary, two formerly competitive technologies have begun to look more and more complementary, and the end result means that the corporate customer wins.