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Java hasn't lost out yet, whatever Microsoft thinks

Are there any grownups inside Microsoft? It has just been caught fiddling a reader poll. Reader polls are a reasonable way of generating reader interest: ask your readers what they think. And one site asked them which programming environment was winning: Java, or Microsoft's alternative, which is .NET.

The survey started out as you would expect - showing Java pretty well ahead. Then suddenly, hundreds of readers wrote in saying: "It's Microsoft! We're all going with Microsoft!" - and .NET surged ahead in the poll.

Sceptics pointed out that it couldn't be true; the market doesn't change that fast. And sure enough, when the web site went back to its servers and checked, it found clear, unmistakable evidence of what you and I would call cheating.

The "readers" who were voting for Microsoft were, it turned out, all using Microsoft email addresses. In other words, they worked for Microsoft.

Last time this happened, it was pretty clear that the gerrymandering campaign was not just coming from inside Redmond, Seattle. It was done with the approval of senior vice-presidents. It was an attempt to show grass-roots support for the company in its anti-trust lawsuit, when the Government accused it of putting other software companies out of business, and Microsoft contended that actually, most people were on their side. It's hard to imagine that senior vice-presidents were behind this latest vote-rigging demo. The issue is supremely important to Microsoft, of course; but this is just an attention-getting ploy by the web site concerned, not a serious lobbying attempt against the US Government.

If it had gone undetected, few would have noticed. OK, the web site is a big one, but market research people are rather more careful than reader pollsters! - and when actual software developers are deciding which tool to use, they don't rely on reader polls.

So my own guess is: this was an idea put together, probably in the Redmond canteen, by some enthusiastic Microsoft juniors. Maybe, even, it was put together in the UK's Reading offices. It was done without skill, because they left their footprints all over the place; and it achieved nothing except to remind the world of how devious Microsoft has been in the past.

About ten years ago, a good friend remarked on his return from a trip to Redmond: "It's weird, that place. It's full of kids who've got there straight from school, and never worked anywhere else. They've never had a proper job with a proper corporation; they think this is the way business is run."

Only last month, this same friend offered the opinion that at least Microsoft was showing some sign of growing up. It seems there are still enough old-fashioned school-kids around to prove him wrong.