Miguel, when I posted the link to the Programming Languages Benchmark I just wanted to let people know about the web site. I did not intended to start another argument, seriously. However, I agree with what you said. If I wanted to compare Java with Mono I would not only focus on performance either. There are many other interesting things to take into account when you choose a free platform to base you applications in. The market consolidation is important, for example - I am quoting:

• Six million Java developers (up 20 percent from last year)
• Four million Java Blu-Ray devices
• Seven million Java set-top boxes
• Over two billion mobile handsets running Java worldwide
• Over two and a half billion Java cards
• Over 700 million PCs with Java installed
• Up to over five billion Java-powered devices worldwide

In fact, having 190+ operators worldwide have deployed Java services (Nokia : 2005), 708 million mobile Java devices shipped by the end of 2005 (Ovum, June 2005), 635 mobile Java device models, 32 mobile device vendors using Java, 45,000+ mobile Java applications (Informa Telecoms & Media, June 2005) and approximately 23 million mobile Java downloads globally per month in 2005 (Nokia, November 2005) also helps quite a little bit.

Language Productivity is important, but I wouldn't say it is that important. I would rather focus on Platform Productivity actually. Having a rapid development environment like Netbeans is an important point. You know, completely free, cross-platform and rock solid. At the end of the day, that will make you way much more productive than having delegates.

So, yes, performance is not everything. We do agree. :-)