I went to hear a Java panel and a Microsoft .Net panel broke out.That was the case at TheServerSide Java Symposium this past Saturday morning. (That’s no typo – it was Saturday morning. Developers are fortunate in that they enjoy their jobs so much they sacrifice a Saturday morning in Las Vegas for more shop talk, to further hone their craft.)Anyway, what I thought would be a Java lovefest turned into a “How do we fend off Microsoft?” debate. The consensus was that .Net is a strong technology but that Java provides the advantages and disadvantages of more community participation. While more amenable to community contributions than perhaps .Net is, it is thus more difficult to build a consensus on improvements than the monolithic .Net platform, which is controlled by Microsoft.Both platforms have advantages in attracting developers. Although Microsoft’s desktop domination is naturally is going to bring developers to its camp, Java is perhaps more open source-friendly, even if it technically is not open source. Thusly, developers can fiddle around more with the platform than they could with .Net. The incidence of “Java rebel frameworks” attests to the experimentation being done on Java. For the time being, both Java and .Net shall remain the dominant platforms. There may not be a victor, but continued coexistence for years to come. Technology Industry