According to a Business Week article, Microsoft was planning inhouse development to replace the Rational offerings!
Absolutely. This is a fight to the death between IBM, and Intel/Microsoft for control of the network computing space.
IBM bought Rational because they knew of Microsofts own development....and they knew they needed this technology to own the business applications back-end.
And anyone who thinks Visio's UML is even close to Rational code is smokin' somthin'.
"The real threat, however, is Microsoft, which is also making the same move. While Rational has long been allied with Microsoft, the software giant now shows every sign of developing its own tools."
Microsoft is one of my clients, and I dont know where they get this idea, which appears to be speculation more than reporting anyway.
Microsoft's Visual Studio.NET Enterprise has an enhanced version of Visio which does a less than adequate job of UML modeling and code generation, and is very weak compared to Rational Rose.
It would have been just as easy for Microsoft to throw a little pocket change at Rational to pick them up, but they were not given the opportunity.
I have no doubt that Microsoft now feels it was treated rudely by a partner, which usually ends up with Microsoft placing a big target on that company's back. In two years, I expect the Rational tools to be marginalized niche products.