Why would Google be playing with .NET?
The biggest news of last week was Microsoft joining the Linux Foundation. There are many speculating what it means for both Microsoft and Linux but news also brought a small note that has drawn so little interest so far: Google is also joining the .NET Foundation.
Although Google has already expressed interest in supporting .NET for its Cloud Platform, we should not forget Google’s recent issues with Oracle in court (the former still dissatisfied with the results it’s getting) over the “copyrightability” of Java’s API on Android. Microsoft already provides support for writing Android apps through Visual Studio with Xamarin (support which is coming to macOS soon), so this approach could work as an escape valve should things turn wrong for Google in the future. I think Swift got in the story by accident. Or as a decoy.
Also, this relationship can be a lot benefical to Microsoft. Supporting Android would mean to continue playing the mobile apps game even after the end of its own platform. Behind closed doors, both companies work to enhance .NET support for Android making it a perfect development alternative to Java, in case of an emergency, while Android itself gets some enhancements to better accomodate apps written using .NET on its platform.
While Google showed no initial interest in supporting Microsoft’s platform beiond its Cloud Platform, it has no web development platform of its own (stablished, so far). Getting it on board the .NET Foundation could make it an easier job for Microsoft to convince Google to endorse and even adopt its web platform as its main product. It’s but a game: if one offers a product the other doesn’t then why not trade support and endorsement? At first sight, this may seem to be of no advantage to Microsoft, who already gains a heavy competitor to its Azure cloud platform, but you have to think about the benefits to the platform itself: in the bigger picture, this could open the door for Microsoft to enter many companies still holding on to Java for their web development, especially governments.
How about Java?
Being ditched for the competitor for both mobile and web development could mean the fall of Java (but not for Oracle yet; their business is databases). Oracle’s been struggling to make some profit from Java (lately in the form of suing Google) since it bought Sun Microsystems in 2009. The company even seems to be so focused in its case against Google/Android it’s not too worried about the next version of its platform, which has been delayed six months. Twice.
I wouldn’t be surprised with a third delay.
Sure notices of death at this point are greatly exagerated, but by joining the .NET Foundation, Google might be just sending a message to Oracle, that it has no fears in ditching Java from its ecosystem. And that could lead to Oracle struggling to keep its platform alive at all.
