Ok. Before you start flaming me, let me explain.

I don't think this, but that's what an external vendor a client of ours said to our client today, so it must be true, right?

The client called me today after he got off the phone to tell me about his conversation. It's a classic. He contacted them because we wanted a pure .NET interface to their system. They offered a COM DLL, but we didn't want that - this app is pure - only managed code here, thank you very much! The guy told us they didn't bother writing a .NET component because .NET is a dead technology. His words (well, the gist of his comments): I know you guys are using it, but no other companies are using .NET. Microsoft is abandoning it too. You may not know this, but they've already moved on to other things. .NET is dead." At first, I was skeptical. Can .NET really be dead? I didn't think so, but he was convincing. "I've been in the business for 15 years, and I can tell you .NET won't be around for long." 15 years? Well, with that kind of history, how could he be wrong?

Already resigning ourselves to the fact that we made a bad technology choice, we asked about Web Services - if they offered that, we could integrate that way. His answer, "We don't do .NET." When informed that Web Services aren't really .NET related, he responded, "XML is tooo slow."

This revelation is unbelievable! Now, I have to stop using .NET and XML!

I've already added a feature request into the bug tracker. "Convert all code to php, and migrate to Unix." I can't take the chance that Microsoft abandons Windows too!