I wasn’t at JavaOne this year on the day they had Microsoft there giving the keynote, but watching the recording of the session, one has to wonder what was their driving motivation to present at JavaOne in front of several thousand Java developers. Yes, I get it, interoperability is important, but Microsoft is the last company you’d think of if you mention the term interoperability.
Bearing in mind their repeated and well known ‘Embrace, Extend, Extinguish’ strategy which they already tried with Java once before with J++ and the Windows Foundation Classes, which failed miserably, one can only be suspicious and wonder what they are up to. Have they really reached a point where they are so worried about the increasing popularity and momentum behind the Java platform that there was a ‘you better send someone down to JavaOne this month to talk to those Java developers’ moment in Redmond? I’m sure we’ll never find out the real reason behind their appearance at JavaOne this year, but based on their prior attempts to kill off Java because it was seen as a threat to Microsoft, this presentation only makes me want to avoid anything Microsoft related like the plague. ‘We come in peace’ – yeah right, I’m sure you do.