[bitwize]

Microsoft developed .NET (internal codename COOL) to get back at Sun for suing them over Java compliance. Microsoft wanted to do embrace-extend-extinguish with the Java runtime and Sun would have none of it, so Microsoft took their ball and were like "Fine! We'll develop our OWN managed runtime and it'll be more better-er than yours is! Neener neener!"

And Bill certainly did program in low level assembly. The last Microsoft code he wrote himself was in the ROM of the Tandy 100 portable computer.

[Someguywhatever]

I think it is better-er than Java and the JVM and they have stewarded their language much better than Java, and now Java borrows heavily from C#. I think they will win in the long run if they haven't "won" already.

[bitwize]

Considering the language and runtime in themselves, I agree.

But they sort of missed the point of Java, which was that it was cross-platform, and a single Java package could be expected to run on a variety of hardware and OS loadouts with no changes (except maybe in configuration). Microsoft, at the time, wanted .NET to be closely tied to Windows, and though the base libraries were submitted to ECMA, to get anything useful you had to have Windows and Microsoft's Windows-only libraries. (There was Mono, but it was not compatible with Microsoft's stuff and few on the Linux side wanted to touch it.)

Things are changing, obviously, with .NET Core. We'll see if Microsoft or someone else solves for cross-platform GUI and other end-user concerns, where .NET has historically been strongest.

[pjmlp]

The Ext-VOS design document as provided by Don Syme, alongside other blog entries, tells another story.