.NET Vs J2EE: How do we compare

A customer recently wrote the following to us-

My organization is currently considering either .NET or Java (J2EE) as our enterprise application development platform.

I am sold on .NET as I believe that:-

· There are cheaper resources (per hour rate) and large vendor/contractor providers

· It quicker to develop applications with .NETusing either Visual Studio or Web Express

· Tools are free

· Strong technical community (MSDN).

He needed facts, independent white papers to confirm the findings.

Here is a link to Competitive Reports and Evidence: Comparing .NET to J2EE. This site contains extensive materials designed to help users evaluate Microsoft .NET vs. J2EE application server technologies. Each area contains downloadable whitepapers, benchmark comparisons, and sample source code (including studies by independent parties like Forrester)

The website Resources for Java Developers contains the above and more sections.

In case you know of more resources, feel free to add.