Microsoft .Net software's hidden cost

Companies planning on moving their old programs to Microsoft's new .Net software plan had better prepare for sticker shock: Making the conversion could cost roughly half of the original development cost, Gartner says.

That may come as a blow to penny-pinching information systems departments in big companies, even those very familiar with Windows programming.

Typically, moving to a new software release isn't so costly. But, warns Gartner's Mark Driver, .Net isn't just a new release of Windows.

"People mistakenly assume the cost of upgrading will somehow be the same as going from one version of a well-established product to another. That's definitely not the case (with .Net)," said Driver, who devised the cost model.

Ari Bixhorn, Microsoft's product manager for Visual Basic.Net, disputed Gartner's conclusions. He said most conversions to .Net are about 95 percent error-free, meaning they can be completed at a cost much lower than what Gartner estimates.

Gartner, however, considered factors other than code conversions in its analysis, such as training and lost productivity. Bixhorn said he didn't see either training or productivity problems as much of a concern.

Microsoft's .Net plan includes new releases of the company's Windows operating system and other server software, along with development tools and infrastructure to make programs more Internet-aware. One new technology supported by .Net is Web services, which promise to make linking internal computer systems, and systems residing in multiple companies, far easier than current methods.

What's unclear is whether the additional cost of moving to .Net will slow Web services releases. Several technology buyers told News.com this week that they are waiting for additional standards and better compatibility before they commit to large-scale projects.

The most prominent piece of .Net released so far is Visual Studio.Net, a new version of Microsoft's development tool package, which debuted in February.

Visual Studio.Net includes new versions of familiar tools such as Visual Basic and Visual C++. But the tool bundle is radically different than predecessors. It includes a new development language called Visual C# (pronounced "see sharp"), and introduces the .Net Framework and Common Language Runtime, which are technologies for managing and running programs.

The new development tool package also ushers in ASP.Net, a specialized type of software called a class library, replacing an older technology called Active Server Pages (ASP) for creating Web applications that support new Web services technology.

Still, long term, Driver predicted that making the switch to .Net for building new programs would help lift productivity and create more efficiency within companies.

"Over the course of the lifetime of an application, .Net might give you 20 percent cost advantage or more over using the older technologies," he said. "You will be able to recover that migration cost over the course of three to five years."

Companies making the switch could do so all at once, but most will likely make the change over a longer period of time. Either way, the cost of migration stays the same.

"It's an issue of paying the 60 percent up front or over the course of three years," Driver said.

The largest cost is code conversion. Because it is difficult to calculate, the 60 percent estimate in some cases could be too low.

The cutting edge can hurt
Gartner based its migration cost estimates on Visual Basic.Net and not on its cutting-edge, Java-like Visual C# programming language. One reason: Cost. A forthcoming study will say the migration cost associated with C# would be even higher than the standard Visual Studio .Net tools, Driver said.

"Some clients have asked about going directly to C#," Driver said. "For the vast majority, going from Visual Basic to Visual Basic.Net may be painful, but it's going to be the least painful of the strategies."

C# is seen as a crucial programming language for advancing .Net. Use of the language doubled in six months, according to a March study by Evans Data.

Without a doubt, companies switching to the new tools and migrating software applications over the long haul will find the switch over the easiest, but even they face difficulties in planning. Driver used the example of a developer running the older version of Visual Studio and Visual Studio .Net over a protracted period.

"That becomes untenable at some point," he said. "You've got to make the switch. So even if you go with a hybrid model, you've got to remember that you're spreading your resources thin over two different platforms."

There are other concerns about making the switch to .Net. At the top of the list is security, Driver said. Following a January memo from Chairman Bill Gates ( news - web sites), Microsoft cranked up emphasis on security. But problems have still surfaced in recent months.

"Some people are hesitant to put Internet Information Server (behind a public Web site) because of security issues. Well, .Net doesn't really address those problems," Driver said. "IIS is still just as vulnerable with .Net running behind it as the older ASP (Active Server Pages) code running behind it."

IBM and Sun also are pushing hard into Web services, advancing their own technology strategies and tools.

Security will be an important part of that emerging market. Market researcher ZapLink said on Thursday that the Extensible Markup Language ( XML) and Web Services security market would top $4.4 billion in 2006.

I don't insist automatically that .NET is better than Java.

Um -- yes, you have.

And of *course* I point out times that Java might have worked better. In that case, I was just pointing out that it was better than regular ASP at that specific task -- which he described fully.

In your world, no mention of Java allowed in an MS discussion. I do feel .NET is good, and Java is better at most things. That is clearly not allowed in your world.

Must be an awfully small world.

Um -- yes, you have.

Read my lips: Java and C#/.NET are analogous. Neither is better. When I suggest parity, you insist that "no, no ... .NET won't be ready for prime time for 3 to 4 years..." which is nothing short of a joke.

And of *course* I point out times that Java might have worked better. In that case, I was just pointing out that it was better than regular ASP at that specific task -- which he described fully.

I won't disagree that Java is better than standard ASP for many things. But it depends on the application. For very simple tasks and limited scope, ASP might make more sense.

In your world, no mention of Java allowed in an MS discussion. I do feel .NET is good, and Java is better at most things. That is clearly not allowed in your world.

You have a right to your opinion. If you think Java is better, fine. Great. Have a cookie. But you have basically given "fill in the blank" as your justification for Java being "better". Which won't fly.

Must be an awfully small world.

Open your eyes.

Unless you can show me some more people that didn't get it, at which point I could possibly admit that I'm just wierd, I can't in good faith and honesty say I think post 17 is misleading.

Then I'd say I know all I need to know about discussing tech with you.

That post has a clear, deliberate meaning. It was an attempt to say that 8 weeks of coding was migrated in 8 hours.

You claim it did *not* mean coding, but an entire project. It *said* coding, and the topic was coding. But you don't think it meant coding.

Got it.

And you still feel it's an "insult" to say that you feel another tech might have been a better choice.

I think the backpeddling has just lead you off a cliff.

Neither is better.

Well, in my world, each technology is better at some things than others. So each has good and bad.

Java has bad -- slower execution times, it's a nightmare to use some local file systems, etc.

I can admit that. That is not an 'insult' to me. You can tell me I made a mistake in using a Java applet for a simple clock, it should have just been ASP. I'd agree, wouldn't consider that an insult.

.NET, also, has good and bad. The good -- OO design, potentially cross-platform, faster development than traditional MS development.

But now's where you start to attack.

.NET also has bad. It's untested. MS has a bad track record. There is no 'applet' style web application (and no, a Windows-only WinForm won't do for any internet applet I do, it can *not* be Windows-only).

One of us is a salesman. The other is a working developer (well, on vacation this week!).

For God's sake, you guys are still arguing about this???

Look, it's very simple:

We all agree traditional ASP is a poor development environment that makes debugging difficult, even though the end result can sometimes turn out to be very effective. I have some blazing fast HTML reports I did with traditional ASP that I'm not likely to replace.
I take issue with the idea that my original claim was "inaccurate". When discussing systems projects, programmers traditionally use the term "code and test" to mean the entire project. Calling it an entire "lifecycle" is too great, since the concept and a fair part of the code for this project already existed in MS Access VBA. From the time I first started reviewing the user requirements to the time the application went into production, eight weeks elapsed. I estimate that two weeks was spent writing, debugging and testing the ASP code alone. But the entire project can be considered a platform conversion from MS Access to Intranet using all the tools Microsoft had to offer at the time. The ASP.NET project was a platform conversion from ASP-based Intranet to ASP.NET-based Intranet. The database stored procedures did not change, so no work was required there. This platform conversion took eight hours.
So while eight weeks to eight hours might be an exaggeration, two weeks to eight hours is an understatement - the platform was converted, not just the programming language used for the web pages.
The point is that an existing Microsoft ASP application (and there are hundreds of thousands of them out there) was very easy to convert to ASP.NET. Converting the same application to use Java/JSP/EJB/Oracle would have taken much closer to the eight weeks spent on the original project, and any performance gain in this situation would have been minimal.
The application has been delivering exceptional performance, and has never crashed since it was first deployed six months ago. The users are happy, the business systems analysts are happy, and the cost of the tools (from one of our MSDN Universal subscriptions, so no additional dollars went out the door) was minimal.

Bottom line: .NET suits our needs perfectly. It is going to save us a lot of development and a lot of money. We are not computer scientists writing compilers and trying to squeeze out a few more cycles from the CPU, nor are we theorists trying to implement the latest esoterica. We are business people trying to help our company save and ultimately make money. We have a Microsoft code base, Microsoft databases and a lot of experienced Microsoft desktop application users and VBA programmers. In our case (and in the case of the majority of "Microsoft shops"), incurring the tremendous training and legacy code conversion expenses of switching to Java and Oracle would be like digging a hole to put up a ladder.

You are right, I suppose it's time we dropped it.

It's just fascinating that others chose to try and rationalize the misunderstanding.

I respect what you're saying about using .NET.

I'll only say that I think that any IT shop that is "Fill in the blank"-only, including MS-only, is making a big, big mistake. Being good a delivering useful tools means an open mind, and being able to select the best possible solution available regardless of vendor.

I would feel the same about a 'Sun-only' shop. In fact, I'd be *more* horrified by a 'Sun-only' shop!

If you actually read what people write instead of turning everything into a personal attack you'd live longer.

How many times can I say this to you. I read his post 17 and I understood what he meant, his answers to your questions jived 100% with how I read the original post. How can I say something that made perfectly good sense to me was misleading? I'm not "claiming" anything. I read it and that's what I immediately understood.

And let's not pretend you were just suggesting a different tech. You said he wasted his employer's resources, then accused him of being a paid shill of MS out. Then you said he wasn't a good coder which is why you changed his 2 week Java estimate to 2 days. Those aren't suggestions Dominic, those are insults on his character skill and professionalism.

What backpeddling. I've been here all day saying the same thing: I understood post 17 clearly. And every other post you say I'm backpeddling. My feet are firmly in the ground, I understood it, if you didn't that's not his fault.

Oh, and let's not forget he specifically mentioned test in the very first line. 8 weeks of code AND TEST. I notice you're quite fond of shaving those last two words off, tells me a lot about the stability of your products.

8 weeks of code AND TEST.

8 weeks of ASP code and test.

Which still has nothing to do with the analysis, db design and SQL stored proc writing you claim.

Of course you stick by your guns, claiming that a clear sentence means the opposite of what it says.

You've proven unwilling to do anything else.

I give. You win the denial contest. I will not waste any more of your time. Post 17 was *very* clear.

Wait a bloody minute. I made many of those exact same points this morning and you said I was backpeddling and rewriting his post and all kinds of other crap. He says the same stuff (which I think goes a long way to indicating that I was on the same page as him the whole time) and he get's "you are right"?! Who's the one being deliberately contrarian here and just reflexively taking the opposite view as somebody else (something you've accused me of a couple times already)?!

"Rationalize the misunderstanding", that's you bub. What's been my line? I got it, don't know why you didn't. You're the one trying to insist that the reason YOU misunderstood was because it was unclear. You're the one trying to rationalize it. No wonder I avoid threads you're on.

Well, in my world, each technology is better at some things than others. So each has good and bad.

Agreed. So general statements about one being "better" than another without regard to the circumstances of use are ludicrous. Don't expect me to take it lying down.

Java has bad -- slower execution times, it's a nightmare to use some local file systems, etc. I can admit that. That is not an 'insult' to me. You can tell me I made a mistake in using a Java applet for a simple clock, it should have just been ASP. I'd agree, wouldn't consider that an insult.

.NET, also, has good and bad. The good -- OO design, potentially cross-platform, faster development than traditional MS development.

Not potentially cross platform: Cross platform. It runs on both Windows and BSD. And if it runs on BSD, it's easily ported to almost any *nix platform on the planet.

.NET also has bad. It's untested. MS has a bad track record.

BS. Not untested. Check out the customer profiles. You may not like their relationships with MS but they are corroborating data. If you want more data, contact the customers involved and request it, personally. But we're not going to let you simply shrug off the data because you'd prefer that it didn't exist.

There is no 'applet' style web application (and no, a Windows-only WinForm won't do for any internet applet I do, it can *not* be Windows-only).

Uh, Rotor is BSD, Harr. It bears the name "WinForms" but it's just middleware. It's bytecode. It can run on any platform.

One of us is a salesman. The other is a working developer (well, on vacation this week!).

When did you move into sales?

Since .Net will dramatically increase the need for outside consultants, such news from Gartner warms my heart.
In the short run, yes.
In the long run, tho, no. I don't think so. Just a guess.

Agreed. .Net will eventually reduce the need for outside consultants, like myself.

But, history tells me that shortly after Microsoft gets .Net to that point, they will discontinue support for it, in favor of some new buggy product that will create even more need for my consulting services. They will continue to release broken, buggy and/or less than fully functional products that are incompatible with prior products. They will eventually fix those products just before the replacement product is to be released. That's how they make their money. There is no indication that Microsoft has any intention of changing that development policy. After all, that policy is what put them where they are.

That's why I am thoroughly convinced that hanging on to Microsoft's coat tails will continue to make consultants like me rich, for many years to come.

Funny, you just again disagreed with every single 'negative' about .NET, and with sales talk in every case.

It is *potentially* cross-platform, as your link proved it is possible. But clearly not yet ready for Unix/Linux/Apple work.

It is untested and new.

And it has no answer to the applet, yet.

As I said, you won't admit any negatives in reference to any MS product. Your opinions are, in my estimation, straight from the MS salesman talking points.

Hmmm, possible. Certainly is a method they've chosen in the past.

Don't know. I hope not. I think it's time the IT industry delivers on this 'Internet' thing we've sold everyone on. The American software industry -- from Oracle to MS to Sun -- has in the past sold a bunch of software that was a pretty poor-quality product, as every other industry measures quality.

I believe it's time for the American software industry to grow up.

Hopefully, .NET and Java will be prime movers in that.

Situation 1:
"Hey Mr. Java developer, that tool you just built could have been done better, and faster, and cheaper in C#. You should have used .NET".
Java Dev: "Oh, really? Thanks, I'll check it out. I'm always interested in better ways to do my job."
Situation 2:
"Hey Mr. MS-only developer, that tool you just built could have been done better, and faster, and cheaper in Java. You should have used Java."
MS-only Dev: "What an insult! How dare you criticize me and my work. I use MS products, and that's an MS product, so that's good enough for me. Now don't ever insult me like that again."

Food for thought.

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