Though the two companies appear to be cooperating more, especially in the area of Web services, the desires of IBM and Microsoft to vanquish one another should not be underestimated. IBM and Microsoft routinely argue that their cooperation, which is producing de facto standards at a record-breaking pace, is happening for the benefit of their customers. But standards, especially Web services standards, also facilitate the substitution of one platform for another. In this case, Java for .Net and vice versa. Nothing would please either company more than to win one of the other's customers by booting out the incumbent run-time...