I see at http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/stories/news/0,4153,1013901,00.html
that Microsoft may be shopping for a Java alternative. Perhaps we could
convince them Smalltalk would be a viable option. :)

Microsoft injecting $50M into Smalltalk would probably do wonders for it's
popularity. Smalltalk is an ANSI standard language and there are already a
number of Smalltalk developers around. They could also probably buy a
decade of already developed technology, to get things rolling fast. Sounds
like a lot shorter path than creating a brand new language.

I suppose a prototype based language like Self or even JavaScript might be
options. A JavaScript like language with rich class libraries and serious
implementation technology might also be a killer language.

On the downside, Microsoft probably has no interest in platform portability.

On the upside, I'm for almost anything that moves things away from the C++
universe. 

- Jan
___________________________________________________________________
            Paradigm Matrix Inc., San Ramon California
   "video products and development services for Win32 platforms"
Internet: Jan Bottorff janb at pmatrix.com
          WWW          http://www.pmatrix.com
Phone: voice  (925) 803-9318
       fax    (925) 803-9397
PGP: public key  <http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/~bal/pks-toplev.html>
     fingerprint  52 CB FF 60 91 25 F9 44  6F 87 23 C9 AB 5D 05 F6
___________________________________________________________________