For the most part, ISVs and end users have been able to choose between .NET and J2EE for their application server platforms. Now thanks to a new partnership between IBM and Mainsoft, they can do both.
Mainsoft’s new Visual MainWin for J2EE version 1.7, also called “Grasshopper,” is now IBM-validated and provides
single source code deployment of .NET applications for IBM’s WebSphere
Application Servers running on Linux.
Both IBM and Mainsoft argue that the new initiative isn’t about replacing
Windows servers, but rather about breaking platform lock-in and providing
additional opportunities for ISVs and end users.
Version 1.7 integrates with Microsoft’s Visual
Studio .NET development environment. It takes C# and Visual Basic.NET code
and produces Java bitecode that will run natively on IBM’s Websphere.
There is no performance gap in moving .NET apps to J2EE, according to
Yaacov Cohen, president and CEO of Mainsoft. He explained that Visual
MainWin provides native J2EE performance and is, “a no compromise J2EE
version that provides a true Java binary.”
Visual MainWin isn’t the only .NET on Linux play out there. Novell’s Mono also aims to provide an open source implementation of the .NET
framework on Linux, though both Mainsoft and IBM argue that Mono is targeted
at a different market segment.
“We are partnering with Mono and it’s really two different offerings,”
Cohen told internetnews.com. “Mono is running directly on Linux and they are very focused on the desktop. We are exclusively focused on the server,”
“We rely on the J2EE application server, the bite code is Java bitecode and it’s run and executed by the Java virtual machine on the application server runtime.”
IBM’s Scott Handy, vice president of worldwide Linux and open source, agreed
that Visual MainWin is a different type of solution than Mono. It’s a
solution that plays well into IBM’s whole multi-platform strategy.
“With Visual MainWin, ISVs don’t just get Linux they get multi-platform
Linux that can be run on x86, Linux on Power or Linux on the Mainframe,”
Handy told internetnews.com. “We don’t have those Mono ports at this
particular point.
“In a broad sense there are a lot of people working on the elusive
nirvana of cross-platform development,” Handy added. “This is a very
specific area where we firmly believe and espouse as part of our strategy to
use a language and an architecture that automatically gives you cross
platform.”
Handy noted that IBM would prefer that people write in Java to achieve
cross-platform compatibility in the first place, though he knows well that
there are still a significant number of applications and ISVs that are
written in the .NET framework.
With Visual MainWin, those applications can now just compile out a version of that application that is in Java bitecode and take advantage of additional
platforms without having to do a rewrite.
Making .NET applications run on IBM’s Websphere isn’t necessarily a
migration play, either, but rather a market reach effort. Instead of providing
applications that run just on .NET, ISVs can now provide their customers
with both .NET and J2EE versions.
“In the whole five years I’ve been doing this, I’ve never come into an ISV
and said we want you to switch from Windows to Linux,” Handy said. “The
right answer there is that you should keep Windows and add Linux for
incremental opportunity.
“This fits right into that for those that have not yet done it and we
would say that this is certainly one of the easiest ways to do it.
