"Our development center in Guangzhou has been recruiting .Net talent for some time, so it has not been a big issue in hiring .Net developers," he said. "On the other hand, we have experienced more difficulties in hiring Java developers."

"At this point in time .Net talent is probably easier to find than J2EE people," Shreves agreed. "Several years of aggressive training and certification programs by Microsoft have seeded the market with experienced personnel. Moreover, at the enterprise level, J2EE skills don't come cheaply."

Convincing management

Despite all the benefits, the decision for Cascade to implement a platform migration did not come easy.

"We needed lots of justification to make these changes and convince our management," said Hong. "One of the major concerns for the business executives was security."