Microsoft's ActiveX and Distributed COM will provide an elegant solution for corporations creating intranet applications. Java has an excellent chance of winning in the Internet, but Microsoft's preeminence on the existing corporate desktop will make it a real player in many enterprise applications. Success breeds success, and in the software business success is measured as much in market share as in revenue.
Market share is an awesome but fickle force.
As a new set of de facto standards evolves in the next few years, market share as much as technological elegance will enable dominance. While most people are focused on the Internet, Zona Research, IDC, and other industry analysts forecast that the majority of corporate IT spending will be on intranets. Forecasts vary, but nearly every analysis predicts at least three to five times more spending on intranet versus Internet sites. Life behind the corporate firewall is different. Reuse of existing components will be a key factor for corporate intranet developers.