Developing and implementing .NET applications in Linux, Unix, Mac, etc. with Mono 2.0

Microsoft has been promoting their .NET application platform quite some years ago, and supporting the development of .NET applications with their Visual Studio development tools. They even introduced a new programming language named as C# targetting to the .NET frameworks.

If you have the impression that .NET applications can only run on MS Windows platforms, and that you can only develop .NET applications using Visual Studio in MS Windows, probably you are still not aware of Mono which frees up all the .NET developers and their applications to the rest of the world other than Microsoft, which includes Linux, Unix, Solaris, BSD, Mac OS X, etc.

Mono is an open source development platform based on the .NET framework, which allows developers to build Linux and cross-platform applications with improved developer productivity. Mono's .NET implementation is based on the ECMA standards for C# and the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI).

The Mono runtime contains a just-in-time (JIT) compilation engine for a number of processors including x86, SPARC, PowerPC, ARM, S390 (in 32-bit and 64-bit mode), x86_64, IA64 and SPARC for 64-bit modes.

The Mono project started in Ximian since 19 July 2001, which was about 7 months earlier than the release of Visual Studio .NET 2002 (first release of Visual Studio that supports .NET framework) by Microsoft. Ximian was a company that provided free desktop applications for Linux and Unix based on the GNOME platform, and has been acquired by Novell in 2003. Mono is currently sponsored, led and supported by Novell.

Mono version 1.0 was released in June 2004, one year after Visual Studio 2003 was released. Current version of Mono is 2.0.1, which is API complete in regards to .NET 2.0 and supports for Visual Basic.NET as well as C# versions 2.0 and 3.0.

Mono includes compilers, an ECMA-compatible runtime engine (the Common Language Runtime, or CLR), and many libraries. The libraries include Microsoft .NET compatibility libraries (including ADO.NET, System.Windows.Forms and ASP.NET), Mono's own and third party class libraries.Gtk#, a set of .NET bindings for the gtk+ toolkit and assorted GNOME libraries can be found in the latter. This library allows you to build fully native Gnome application using Mono and includes support for user interfaces built with the Glade interface builder. Furthermore, Mono's runtime can be embedded into applications for simplified packaging and shipping. In addition, the Mono project offers an IDE called MonoDevelop, Debugging, and a documentation browser called MonoDoc.

As an open source software, you can download, copy, distribute and use Mono for free. Here is the download page of Mono.

There are a lot of information about Mono in Wikipedia. There are also many resources and documentations about Mono in its official website.

TM revised Lets Talk packages to give more benefits

Recently, TM sent me a notice about the changes in their Let's Talk plans, which would replace the existing from 15 November 2008 onwards.

Here are the new Let's Talk packages:

Let's Talk 38

• Monthly fee: RM38
• Local calls: free unlimited
• National (STD) calls to TM's fixed lines: free 60 minutes/month, thereafter 18 sen/min
• Calls to mobile & other fixed lines: flat rate @ 25 sen/min
• International (IDD) call: normal rate
  

Let's Talk 68

• Monthly fee: RM68
• Local calls: free unlimited
• National (STD) calls to TM's fixed lines: free unlimited
• Calls to mobile & other fixed lines: free 60 minutes/month, thereafter flat rate @ 25 sen/min
• International (IDD) call: normal rate

Let's Talk 108

• Monthly fee: RM108
• Local calls: free unlimited
• National (STD) calls to TM's fixed lines: free unlimited
• Calls to mobile & other fixed lines: free 90 minutes/month, thereafter flat rate @ 20 sen/min
• International (IDD) call: up to 80% discount. The discount is based on destination country.
  

Click here for information of the IDD normal and discount rate.

From the "2008 Q1 Communications & Multimedia - Selected Facts & Figures" bulletin published by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC, a.k.a. Suruhanjaya Komunikasi dan Multimedia Malaysia - SKMM), we can notice that TM feels the challenge in sustaining their fixed line subcriptions, while the cellular phone subscription has been growing steadily.




I believe the declination in fixed line subscription could be even greater if not sustained by the Streamyx broadband service which relies on the fixed line infrastructure. However, the emergence of faster and more stable wireless Internet technologies such as 3G Mobile, Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX), High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), and so on, will definitely introduce new challenges to the fixed line business of TM.

It is good to know that TM realises their situation, and has taken some action to try to maintain their fixed line business which they have been dominated in the country.

You might probably also interested to read my other article about "is it wise to change your phone plan to Let's Talk?".

Cellular phones penetration rate

10 years ago, you might find only 1 or 2 out of 10 people around you had a cellular phone. Today, the scenario has reversed, you can hardly find anybody around you without a cellular phone, especially those above 18 years of age.

The graph below shows the number of cellular service subscription in Malaysia over the years.

We can clearly see that prepaid subscription greatly outnumber postpaid subscription. The sum of them in 2007 is already very close to the population of Malaysia.

The graph above can be converted into the one below to show the enetration rate per 100 inhabitants in Malaysia.

As you can see, we have a penetration rate of 85.1% in year 2007, which is quite a high figure. Let's break down that figure by state, and we have the penetration rate in each state for year 2007 as below.

We have a high penetration rate in urban area, such as Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Penang, etc. Melaka also has a high penetration rate of 85.5% by 2007. The penetration rate in East Malaysia (Sabah & Sarawak) is the lowest, probably caused by the lack of coverage of cellular network in rural areas there.

The next graph compares the penetration rate among ASEAN as well as some other countries. It is a very interesting graph.




In 2007, among the ASEAN countries, Singapore has the highest cellular penetration rate, followed by Malaysia and Thailand.

Notice that in certain places such as Singapore, Australia, Taiwan, UK, Hong Kong, etc., the cellular penetration rate has already gone above 100%. This mean that in those regions, there are quite a lot of people subscribed to more than one cellular number at the same time. Hong Kong has a really high penetration rate that out of 2 people on the street, you can probably find 3 mobile phones from them.

All raw data is obtained from the "2008 Q1 Communications & Multimedia - Selected Facts & Figures" bulletin published by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC, a.k.a. Suruhanjaya Komunikasi dan Multimedia Malaysia - SKMM).