Ah Microsoft, good for flight simulators, The Digital Union of Paperclips and historically not so great for Java. Digging around in old press releases reveals that it is around 19 years to the date Microsoft announced Visual J#.
Visual J# .NET includes technology that enables customers to migrate Java-language investments to the .NET Framework
Microsoft historically competed with the Java platform through C# and then J#. That is not to say that competition is not good, we probably have a superior Java platform due to decent competition. However, we certainly can’t say that this was a collaborative move towards the Java ecosystem. It all got a bit ugly and a lawsuit was eventually settled between Sun and Microsoft.
18 years later Sun is sadly no more, but Java is stronger than ever. Developers from other languages often ask me why I like Java so much? For me, it is all about community and the efforts and lengths that the Java community goes to for all contributors. J# is now end of life and Microsoft is now an active contributor to the OpenJDK Ecosystem.
Last year Microsoft announced it was ready to contribute to OpenJDK. Suddenly Microsoft boasts a full complement of well recognised Java names, helped by hiring and acquisitions.
At Microsoft, we strongly believe that we can do more for our customers by working alongside the Java community.
Things have clearly changed dramatically from the 2001 quote of looking to migrate away from Java and helping customers to do that. I was personally really excited to see Microsoft openly look to join the Java community! Is it all talk though since the announcement? Far from it, in June Microsoft announced support for OpenJDK for Windows 10 on ARM. This is a major contribution and not the only contribution, a summary list can be found at the end of this blog.
A year since Microsoft made the announcement we arrive at the first JDConf run by Developer Relations at Microsoft in collaboration with members of the community. There’s an exciting agenda with a range of quality speakers and topics. I am looking forward to the virtual conference, it appears the sessions have been curated with care to be meaningful to Java Developers.
You can follow the hashtag #JDConf on Twitter and I’ll also be summarising some of my experience of the sessions on my blog.